Firstly, I feel I must apologise for my lack of postings lately, life just a little hectic here during daylight hours, and I have to admit I got rather absorbed in the olympics and also a certain trilogy of books I felt I should read, whenever I got the chance...
Anyway, I've been topping grass again, I think most of our fields have been done 4 or 5 times this summer - I've never known anything like it here before - thank heavens for my radio ear defenders which Peter bought me for my birthday, they have kept me from going insane with boredom as I go round and round in ever decreasing circles. Most of the time I have been driving along keeping an eye on our birthing paddock ... which has resulted in a cricked neck on a couple of occasions when a tractor wheel bumped into rabbit holes!
Now as sods law dictates the last 3 to birth were late, but at last yesterday, at 11 months 21 days Medusa gave us a lovely dark fawn girl 'Melissa' by Snowmass Invincibly Elite, I was expecting a white boy same as last year (Baylee) from the same pairing. Then this morning when I looked out of the window first thing BonBon was looking slightly uncomfortable at 11 months and 22 days and enormous I was not surprised, but hopeful we could get another one out of the way. At feed time she was definitely in first stage .....and Akela, the other of the last 3, was humming too! Would be so good if she birthed today. Back to BonBon and all was proceeding well and by coffee time a little pink and white nose appeared, and then the whole head and then a leg - just the one. Thankfully Rebecca, my number one assistant held on to BonBon whilst I had a quick rummage about and found the other leg. Now last year she had Midlington a white boy, same pairing, another Invincibly Elite again, this time she gave us a light fawn, maybe beige female - Bonnie - what a result!
Whilst all this was going on Akela decided to unpack her cria too, almost in the same place. At one time I thought she may beat her to it. Now this breeding was with our lovely grey boy Ardingly, Akela has had greys in the past and this is what were were hoping for. So imagine the excitement when a little black and white nose and face appeared - ah, but then the rest of the cria.... is very dark brown, a shade of grey, maybe?! Anyway, SHE is beautiful and we have called her Anastasia-almost-Grey!!!!!
So that's it for another year - birthing box packed away. 10 boys and 11 girls - for us thats pretty good ;)
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| Medusa and Melissa |
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| BonBon and Bonnie |
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| Anastastia-Almost-Grey |
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| If you look really closely there is a bit of grey here!!! |
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| Akela and Anastasia |
I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Anastasia turned grey during the next year. We have a girl born just like that, but 6 months old I thought she had a bit of frost on her back (it was winter after all) only to discover it was grey fibers! ahh :) I find the faster they grey the more they grey but she looks like she wants to be grey.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on all the cria :) love birth days!
Cara
We too have greys and had a boy from our grey dam that looked almost black at birth but, after shearing, he was actually a gorgeous mid-grey so... maybe!
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