Photo shoot

Time for updated photos of the gang! And also a mini-genetics lesson. See how cool homeschooling is? My 8 year old was talking about genetics the other day, without even realizing it! She can see it happening each breeding season, up close and personal!

Thanks to a good friend of ours for these gorgeous shots…

Here’s our matriarch, Millie, with her twins:

Millie’s ALWAYS on the lookout…for danger…for food. What else does a sheep have to concern herself with?! Millie is the most amazing mom. When she sees us coming with a snack, most all of the other sheep run to us, but Millie almost always takes time to let her lambs nurse a little before she runs over. I always see her making sure they’re following her when she moves from place to place, too. I love seeing these maternal qualities!

Here’s Laverne and Shirley. They are really quite a pair! Their markings are incredible! It’s funny that one ended up with horns and the other is polled. This is controlled genetically, and their sire, Monty, has mixed polled/horned genetics, so he always has a chance of producing offspring that are polled or have smaller than normal horns or scurs.

Bruna and her mom, Bindi.

Bruna is also polled. She’s our gorgeous spotted moorit. Her sire, Monty, carries a gene for the moorit (brown) color. Her brother, below, may also carry this gene. As Bruna ended up polled because of her sire’s genetics, this little ram lamb appears to have smaller horns, meaning that he is probably carrying the polled gene, and expresses this by having smaller than normal horns.

Here’s Roxanne’s singleton, Esther.

She’s a real sweetie. Unfortunately she got her head caught in the fence (the grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side, dont’cha know?) and broke off one of her little horn stubs when she was younger. Her left horn is not quite as pointy or long as the right now. She and her mother are related to Millie. Great stock, both of them. Here she is, striking a pose:

OK – that concludes the pictures from my friend’s fancy schmancy camera…now a few that I took last week…

A nice shot of Bruna’s brother:

Here you can see Esther’s horns. Did I mention that Esther has the silkiest fleece of all the lambs?

And here’s her mom, Roxanne, who’s doing quite a good job as a first time yearling mom:

Millie’s looking so brown these days. This is from the phaeomelanin pigmentation that she exhibits so strongly. Roxanne also has it, as do Millie’s lambs:

Here she is being all maternal:

A nice shot of her ram lamb and his gorgeous horns:

Here’s the famous Daisy, our first-borne lamb at Morning Star Meadows. She’s really looking nice these days! She’s polled.

And her mother, Matilda, my personal favorite:

Molly, chomping down with her twins:

Laverne:

Hanging out with mom…

Too nice a shot to leave out…aren’t they just so photogenic?

Here are the boys hanging out together:

Icelandic Genetics 101 pop quiz tomorrow! OK, so maybe not…

Anyway – hope you enjoyed the photo update! And yes, the lambs are getting big fast! This weekend they’ll already be having their first vaccination!