Clippity-clip

The past few days I've been busy clipping my does in order to update my Nigerian web-pages. Here's Veliraf TW N'utmeg after she's had her spring haircut. I always forget how elegant the goats looked once they are clipped, not that they appreciate it. Spring is finally here after an interminable winter, and the last couple of days have been quite nice. Our barn is filling up with lambs, we have pure Finns, Romanovs, Shetland and Icelandics this year- so there is always someone interesting to look at. Our last group of Nigerian Dwarf Goat kids should be here any day. We are waiting for the following does to freshen- Veliraf P's Thistle, Veliraf P's Thorn, Veliraf MP Nadia, Veliraf P's Tupelo, and Veliraf SUG Tickseed. Little Tupelo is as big as a house right now, and spends much of her time sitting on her haunches, like a dog. She looks so darned uncomfortable!!

Frigid Weather

Not too sure how long this will be- between putting the kids down for a nap, and attempting to get things done, there is just never enough time in a day! November had a very nice red Dexter bull calf born here- so far he looks quite nice. Nice topline, nice head. We'll have to see how he develops over the next six months or so- I've posted a picture of the little guy when he was about a month old.
Our Romanovs that we purchased last year are due to lamb in the last week of January- looks pretty exciting- though it looks as though one slipped her lambs early on in her pregnancy. The rest look like they are all going to twin, though as it is my first lambing with them- I could be mistaken.
In the summer, the day I was due with our fifth child- I sent my husband off to New York to pick up a starter flock of Finnsheep. Much work and planning went into this importation, and it didn't happen without tons of effort on both my part as well as the breeder I purchased from. They did manage to get here though, as well as a group of seven Finnsheep that were brought in from Alberta. We have a nice flock of Finns now- we are starting with 12 ewes and 2 rams- one of which is a Silver Badgerface- absolutely gorgeous!!

I see the light!!!

Mid-March(the twelfth, to be exact), and spring is right around the corner. I can hardly wait! We have introduced another breed of sheep here to Veliraf Farm. Finding our original stock was quite the challenge!! Registered Roanovs are few and far between, that's for sure. After almost a year, we finally managed to bring home 5 ewe lambs!! Although it will be early 2009 before our first purebred Romanov lambs are born here at our farm- we are quite happy with our purchase. These girls are totally amazing sheep in regards to their prolificy. The regularily have litters of three, four, five, and even six lambs. They breed reliably out of season, all of our ewe lambs were born in October- and the smallest litter size of our purchased lambs was 2. Quite impressive!!! We think these girls are very pretty, and they are quite photogenic as well- even in our dark-ish barn. See how Trinity winks at the camera!!!

Mid-winter Piggy thoughts

We are now about half way through winter. This year our winter has been much busier than most. Two litters of purebred Tamworth piglets coming in frigid weather does have a tendancy to set plans back a touch!! Aren't the piglets nice though. We ended up with litters of 7 and 9 piglets. Both are nice consistant litters, and I am quite pleased with them. I have decided to keep back a gilt from Perscilla, and to add her to our growing farm!! We don't use farrowing crates here, nor do we use hormones or antibiotics. I want the animals we raise for our family to be as natural and wholesome as possible. We will soon have home-raised pork in our freezer, and I can hardly wait. It has been quite some time since we have had our own pork. These guys are smooth and have nice firm muscling, it must be from all the excercise they get running away from me! They have yet to become nice sedate pigs like their parents!! That's quite all right though- the friendlier they are, the harder it is to eat them :)

A few thoughts on life!!

My goodness!! I have been reading over what I wrote over 8 months ago. Ahhh yes, how things change! We are once again entering our down time here on the farm...........but wait.............our un-cooperative, un-breedable, unruly, utterly gorgeous(for pigs, that is) Tamworths, have decided that July was the month for love. So three months, three weeks and three days later.......Perscilla and Atilla have produced two litters of piglets for us with the help of our Alberta-born Boar, Diego. Perscilla produced 8 lovely piglets on November 21st, managed to step on one- but we have four females and three males. Attila, the 'big' girl, must have thought there was some sort of food reward for the largest litter, and produced 12 piglets on November 26th. Three of them are on the smaller side, and the tinest female has gotten itself stepped on- but everyone else is doing fine so far- though I really worry about the little ones. I know there are more males than females- I think it's about a 8:4 split but I could very well be wrong. Atilla unlike her half-sister, really does not want me messing about with her babies.....I think her name really suits her :)
In other news, we attended our first sheep show- the Rockton Worlds Fair. We managed to bring home a rosette for the Champion Shetland Ram. We also won first place for the Breeders Flock. Since this was our first show- obviously there is only one place for us to go from here!!! Ha!
I am trying to focus my breeding efforts with my Shetlands, and last year I bought some nice rams to try to furthur my goals. I bought a huge moiget ram, a spotted gulmoget ram, a fawn katmoget ram, as well as a white ram. I think out of the four of them I am most happy with the lambs out of the moiget boy- but we'll have to wait and see what maturity does for the lambs I have kept back. I did not keep any ram-lambs back from the 2007 lambing season- I figured the Champion boy would be better used in another flock, and since I still have all the sires, keeping more rams simply would not be necessary.

Veliraf Farm's New Blog

Well, I decided to try out a blog for our farm- not sure if I will like it or not- but you just never know until you try! So.......here it is.
We're in our 'down time' on the farm, where our daily chores take up most of our time. I cannot wait until winter is over. We are due to start lambing at the beginning of April, and the goats will begin freshening soon after. The cows are due to calve sometime in the spring. We are also going to be breeding one of our new purebred Tamworth sows in order to have a litter of pigs in the spring. Our poultry will all start laying fairly soon- so the incubator will have to be brought out of storage to be put in use once again this spring.
We should have a bumper crop of animals born the spring. I can hardly wait.