Topics

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Buy and Sell / 2017 Select Cut Lamb Sale - Bidding open

« on: April 11, 2017, 06:57:15 am »

Bidding is now open.  I really like the lambs in this sale and think with the right feeder any of them can compete and shows.  Some look good enough to me to compete even with an OK feeder, 

Our 2 ewe lambs are from the top end of our crop.  The last few years our lambs in this sale have all stayed in Minnesota.  I'd love to see one of these lambs shown in another state and we can help get her shipped to almost anywhere in the country.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / 2017 Spring Workshop - Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers

« on: March 18, 2017, 01:03:09 pm »

If you are interested, please pre-register by 3/20 so we can have enough lunches.

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Buy and Sell / MN Bred ewe sale - November 26, 2016

« on: November 24, 2016, 06:40:36 am »

Minnesota Bred ewe sale is this Saturday.  Show at 9:00 AM sale at 1:00 PM.  Several breeds , wether dams, registered Hamps, Suffolks, Dorsets, Southdowns ....

If you want a fitted sheep the registered sheep are very high quality and a good place to go.  Many of these breeders (particularly the Hamps) excel at national shows and win many state shows.

Wether dams include 3 of our ewes, Kinsely and Sobota's.  Two of our ewes are out of Strykeforce.  We sold some of their half sisters last fall and 2 of them placed 2nd and 5th in the state 4-H show yearling club lamb ewe class.  I think these fit right in with those for quality.  The other we have is a March born Annuity daughter that while genetically she'd be a sure keeper March ewes lamb so late she won't contribute to a sellable lamb for 2 years in our system.  She's a very correct ewe.  See that catalog for the sale here:  http://www.mnhampshires.org/minnesota-bred-ewe-sale/

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Happy Thanksgiving

« on: November 24, 2016, 06:33:00 am »

I posted on FB some of the things I'm thankful for but many of you aren't FB friends with me.  (Although I do say yes to anyone requesting to be a friend that I see a sheep in the photos.).  Feel free to add what your thankful for today.


Some things I'm thankful for
1. Health of my immediate family
2. Return of my son last week from deployment and that we could be there to help him deal stress and issues resulting from his storage unit being broken into and the theft of many valuable items.  (I had thought these were fairly secure).
3. That my career as a Financial Advisor is accelerating
4. That we live in a country that DOES have (reminder to some) peaceful transitions of power.
5. That our sheep look like they are all doing fine

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Ewe marked with CIDR

« on: August 26, 2016, 11:59:50 am »

I implanted some ewe lambs with CIDRs and put them with the ram last night.  Today is the 2nd cycle for my mature ewes and I planned on pulling the CIDRs on the ewe lambs today.  A couple of them clearly got well marked by the rams overnight, while they still had CIDRs in them. As planned I pulled the CIDRs today.  So, I'm curious if any of you have had such ewes and if they breed from this mating or not.

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Buy and Sell / Center of the Nation Sale & Sabermetric

« on: July 05, 2016, 09:40:30 am »

Sabermetric (693015-2015-155168) will sell in the June 23, 2016 Center of the Nation sale. On the June 2016 sire summary, he is
 • #1 Weaning weight of 4.43
 • #1 Post wean weight of 7.85
 • #2 PEMD of .99
 • #1 Carcass + rank of 165.7 (Highest of any black face ram)

 
See: http://www.conoverauction.com/online-catalogs.html

For those not familiar with the EBVs.  A 4.43 EBV means Sabermetric's lambs will average 4.43 kilograms (9.3 lbs) more than the breed average at weaning and the 7.85 post weaning weight means his lambs will average 7.85 kilograms (15.7) lbs more at age for slaughter.   While most of the discussion on the board is centered around showing market lambs and we really don't care how slow the lambs grow, many families also sell lambs for slaughter this is an important side of the sheep industry.  The EBV of 7.85 simplistically means the lambs will get to slaughter weight about 3 weeks earlier when on full feed, that's definite way to make more money in the feed lot.  The PEMD is loin eye depth and it's highly correlated to actual loin eye (much more so that our judges assessment of how the rack  handles in the show ring.)

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Buy and Sell / Cyclone Semen for sale - June 8th

« on: June 08, 2016, 01:52:43 pm »

We have put one of our rams, "Cyclone" into the Willoughby Special Collections Semen Sale" going on today, June 8th.

http://www.dwlivestock.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?willoughby801%2F36

If you have a Hampshire flock that you would like to put into NSIP, one of the most important early steps is to get your flocked genetically linked to other flocks. Sharing stud rams is the best way to do this. Next best is using a son of a shared ram. Buying Cyclone semen would be an excellent way to get that linked established as he's been used in 3 flocks and has sons working in flocks also and he was born into a 4th NSIP flock. He is the 2nd ram on the Hampshire sire summary, 693005-2014-014118, see: http://nsip.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Hampshire-Elite-Proven-Sires-May-2016-2.pdf, His son (working in our flock), is the clear leader in the sire summary for ram lambs, http://nsip.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Hampshire-Elite-Young-Rams-May-2016.pdf

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Buy and Sell / Annuity Club Lambs for sale

« on: April 22, 2016, 09:02:07 pm »

Getting near the end of lamb selling season and we've got a few nice ones left.   We have a Facebook page showing pictures of some of these lambs.  We can help ship most anywhere so if interested let me know.  We can also get a video of any you'd like.   All our Annuity lambs.  His lambs have been really popular this year and he looks like he's going to give us exactly the kind of lambs we hoped for when we bought him.








 See: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1384767024873318.1073741851.232218160128216&type=3

For more info on our flock see: https://www.drewryclublambs.com

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Minnesota Lamb and Wool Spring work shop

« on: March 31, 2016, 10:46:15 am »

http://www.mlwp.org

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / State fair reviews

« on: September 03, 2015, 07:18:12 am »

Lot of state fairs are in August.  It would be interesting to know more about some of the different fairs.  My understanding is Minnesota state 4-H show is pretty unique.  Our fair is still in progress but I'll summarize it briefly.

Located St. Paul MN, it runs 12 days with about 1.8 million visitors.  3 basic livestock periods.  First 4 days, 4-H livestock, middle period open class sheep, dairy, swine, last 4 days FFA livestock and open class beef and open class goats.

Rules are much different in the 4-H and FFA shows.  4-H show, kids are allowed to bring only one animal.  That animal must have won a trip at the county fair.  Trips are allocated primarily through number of members and animals shown.  Some bonus "trips" for high quality shows and/or programs.  4-H sheep show has 5 divisions of market lambs, white face, speckle face, light, middle and heavy weight black face lambs.  Wether dam ewes are judged by the market lamb judge and showed by weight. Breeding show has primarily registered fitted sheep but we have classes for unregistered white face and black face ewes.  Lambs are shown by birth month, yearlings show together.  No rams are shown in 4-H. There are about 400 different kids showing lambs in the 4-H.  The auction is a 4-H auction and simplistically the top 10% of market animals make it into the auction.  Some state money found for champions, most other auction lambs money is raised by the home county.  Quality used to drop off quite a bit in the market lamb classes in the bottom 3rd.  This year I think all lambs were at least current market lamb style. 

FFA show is pretty much a junior open class show.  Until last year all sheep had to be registered, kids could have a full string of sheep in yearling, fall, winter, spring classes.  They could have 2 sheep in each class.  My guess is there are over 600 lambs but I doubt there are more than 100 kid showing.  Last year an unregistered wether dam class was started for the first time.  This year I think it's the largest class with 70 lambs, (might mean that total number of lambs is now too low).  Market classes are the same divisions as 4-H.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Success sharing - 2015 Dakota County Fair

« on: August 13, 2015, 02:23:40 pm »

Champion ewe exhibited by Caitlin Gillette and reserve champion showmanship winner, Lamb bred by Drewry Club Lambs.  I believe we have bred 10 of the last 12 champion ewes at this fair.  One of the two other years was a ewe one of my daughters showed that is the mother or grandmother of several of the champions.  The year we didn't breed or show the champion ewe was the year we didn't ID the yearling ewe we brought to the fair (minor screw up).

 

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Do your rams like to look dead?

« on: August 11, 2015, 05:37:12 pm »

We  had a ram many years ago that liked to lay flat on his side and look totally dead when you looked out at him in his pen. Apparently, we get to relive that as this morning one of our yearlings was doing the "dead ram" pose.  When I came out to the barn he was flat on his side.  He's a little plump so the belly was sticking up sort like bloat had set in. He was completely stationary until I was within about 10 feet.  Then, after I yelled at him, he slowly got and looked at me, with the "What" expression.

Some what annoying, but he appears to be quite healthy.

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Buy and Sell / Pick your buck bred ewes for sale

« on: July 31, 2015, 08:47:28 am »

We've done a "casual pick your buck sale" for the last few years and it works pretty good.
For sale
- Ewe lambs, mostly Strykeforce daughters
- Yearling ewes, mostly Predator daughters
- Two year old ewes, mostly Dagger daughters

We synchronize all our ewes.  So, you can pick the ram and the lambing date!  Choices of rams

For shows - Club lamb sheep
Annuity - Very thick Cabannis yearling ram we purchased this summer
StrykeForce - Keep ram lamb from 2014.  Most of his lambs this year were born to late for the bulk of our club lamb buyers.  We've seen a few of his lambs that will get shown at later county fairs and they are looking really good.  He has one championship to his credit so far. Annity is below:



For NSIP
If you're interested in NSIP we have the top two indexing rams in the Hampshire breed.  If you wanted to enroll in the program flock links are really important and this is way you can not only get linked in but you'd be getting lambs out of one of the top two rams in program.  Sabermetric (top indexing ram in the breed with 156.6, and Cyclone (his sire), are the best choices for that route.  The above Club ram lambs could be also used for this purpose

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Center of the Nation Sale - July 25, 2015 Spencer Iowa

« on: July 11, 2015, 05:03:16 pm »

Ok - warning, this is NOT a show lamb sale.  [edited to update link] http://d3s7yb5qtsmwow.cloudfront.net/dvauction.com/catalogs/_Fall_2015/NSIP%20Sheep%20Sale%207-25-15/HTML/index.html
However, there are many segments to the sheep industry and it's at least good for kids and other people to know about the other segments.  The Center of the Nation Sale is the country's elite NSIP (EBV) sale.  These sheep are bred for their genetic potential for use primarily as production breeding stock.  The sale catalog happens to be a different style than most on-line show orientated catalogs.  Just a different style this auctioneer uses.

The terminal sire sheep frequently have some club lamb genetics in their backgrounds.  If you also raise commercial sheep in addition to show sheep this is actually a good source for breeding stock.   The evaluation of EBVs are done by comparing how sheep perform in each flock and then use genetic links between the flocks to determine what sheep have the genes that result in more growth, bigger loin eyes, better milking, more lambs born, better wool, worm resistance, etc. 

One of our stud ram Cyclone,  693005-2014-014118 from ISU happens to be the Hampshire breed's leading proven stud ram in this system.  His son Sabermetric may well be the breed's leading young sire when the next sire summaries are published as his carcass+ index is substantially higher than the current leaders. see NSIP reports at: http://nsip.org/usa-terminal-reports/

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Looking for a sheep ride - Oklahoma to SE Minnesota (ideally near Minneapolis)

« on: July 07, 2015, 08:03:36 pm »

I need to get a ram from Cabaniss's to my place in the next few weeks.  So, trying to find someone taking a trailer from Oklahoma to Minnesota or even possibly to Iowa.