Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair 2014!!! A Year of Big Wins!

What Fun!!

It all started with my flocksire Zeke's fleece taking first place in the Primitive Breed White category! This was my first time showing a sheared fleece at SAFF. The judge takes each fleece out of its bag and looks it over very well and a scribe writes the judge's comments on a sheet of paper for the owner. The comments for this fleece were: "Very clean. Very strong fiber. Very nice. Beautiful luster. Strength good. Very uniform." The judge then takes out the other fleeces in the category and places them accordingly. This reflects not only on Zeke and his lovely fleece, but also on the quality of skirting done before bagging and presenting the fleece. In addition, the fleece sold in the Silent Auction for winner's fleeces! I'll be showing/selling more fleeces at SAFF next year!

The Junior Sheep Show was held on Saturday. I was lucky enough to have some very accomplished showpersons showing my ewes: Hannah King, Bailey Strub and Anna Hopkins. Big Thanks!!! Since there aren't Icelandic Classes yet, Icelandics show in the Long Wool Classes with Leceister Long Wools, Lincolns, Teeswaters, Wendslydales, and all Long Wool crosses. Wiress won her Ewe lamb class with Twill second. Portia won her Yearling Ewe class and Deva won her Aged Ewe class. Deva went on to win the Breed Championship and the Supreme Ewe of the Junior Show. She also won the Long Wool Colored Fleece class. Thanks to Hannah, Bailey and Anna for showing my ewes with such professionalism!

Jr. Long Wool Breed Championship Class. 3 of my ewes in the running with Deva winning.

Deva and Anna Hopkins. Deva went on to win Jr. Supreme Champion Ewe.

The Open Show was held Sunday. Breed Classes are shown first and the sheep are judged 60% on wool and 40% on conformation. Haymitch took second place in Long Wool Ram Lambs White behind a Teeswater and ahead of a Teeswater. Cinna won Long Wool Ram Lambs Colored. Wiress won her LW Ewe Lamb class with Clove in third. Portia was 2nd in her LW yearling class. Deva came in 2nd in LW aged ewes with Yuli in 5th. Fleece Classes are a different story; they are judged 100% on wool. Deva won LW Fleece Champion and was one of the top 4 the judge pulled out of all the sheep in the fleece Supreme Champion class. My friend Susan Proctor's colored Montadale won Supreme Chamion Fleece as a Fine Wool entry. What an incredible day!

Deva with some of her ribbons. In the Open Show ribbons are handed out only for Championships.

FMGL Wiress. She had 3 first places.

FMGL Twill.

FMGL Cinna  ~ photo by Ana Tucker

FMGL Haymitch  ~ photo by Ana Tucker

Ram Lamb For Sale: FMGL Haymitch

Here's a lovely ram lamb for sale: FMGL Haymitch.

He has a beautifully soft fleece and a nice wide horn set. 

He is halter trained and has a very respectful attitude.

$400.00

The photos below are of Haymitch's sire: INGL Zeke

What a remarkable resemblance!

At the Sountheastern Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville, NC,          Zeke won 2012 Longwool Ram Lamb class and 

went on to win Longwool Ram Champion. 

In 2013 at SAFF, he won the Longwool Yearling Ram class.

Now he has my favorite fleece and a great disposition.

Below are pictures of Haymitch's mother, INGL Yuliana.

She is a 2011 Moorit Mouflon. 

At SAFF in 2012, she won Longwool Aged Ewes.

She has the sweetest disposition, incredible milk

and has had very square, lovely twins both years breeding.

Update on Lambs for Sale

Since it finally stopped raining, I was able to get some nice shots of some of my lambs. More ram lamb photos will be in a separate post. All of my sheep are registered Icelandic Sheep from parasite resistant and heat tolerant breeding. Milkiness is part of my breeding program, too.

These two are twin ewe and ram lambs: Twill on left and Marvel on right. Marvel was the bottle lamb who has now surpassed his sister in size. They are both halter trained and very friendly. They were born the end of April. Their fleeces are SO soft. They are $400.00 each.

Twill

Marvel

These are twin ewe lambs. On the left is Wiress and Clove is on the right. They were born the first week of April. Both are halter trained and quite friendly. The fleeces on both of these girls are long and soft!

They are $500.00 each.

Wiress

Clove

There are discounts if you buy two or more at a time.

Contact me if you have any questions.

"The Letting Go Has Begun" (Melissa Etheridge)

After a two hour session yesterday of tattooing ears and piercing them with Scrapie tags,

I said goodbye to two of my lovely 2014 ewe lambs, Posy and Trinket.

Posy on left and Trinket on right.

They are on their way to Maggie Valley, NC. It's over 3,000 feet above sea level which means they will enjoy cooler weather than they have here. Their new shepherdess is quite excited and I am grateful that they will have a good home! They will be joining two Icelandic X East Fresian yearling ewes to produce milk and fiber. It's still so hard to see them go.

Each of them had a twin brother and neither brother seemed to notice they were gone. Boys for ya!

Happy Trails!

2014 Icelandic Lambs

Twill ewe

Marvel ram

O'dair ram  

Cinna ram  

Posy ewe   SOLD

Clove ewe

Wiress ewe

Trinket ewe   SOLD

Haymitch ram   On Hold