[Jacob-list] Jacob Crosses

[Hettick, Heather]

I enjoy the crosses.  They make nice meat lambs and usually have interesting fleeces.  We have bred Jacobs to a mostly Tunis ewe and her progeny as well as to Icelandic rams.

We would either get polled or two horned lambs from the Tunis ewe but they were always black, sometimes with a little white on head.

With horned Icelandic rams, we can get spots if the ram carries spots and black otherwise with a little white on head or feet sometimes.  I have always had horned Icelandic crosses, both 2 and 4.  They often have really nice horn sets.  

The coolest one was a 4 horned ewe lamb who was spotted with the badgerface pattern, but we lost her over her first winter to an accident.

I have also had SUED in some of my 4 horned Icelandic/Jacob crosses.  The only 4 horned one this year has SUED.
This year we had a tiny 4 pound spotted cross.  His back legs were crippled and we ended up putting him down after a few days of trying to get him going.  His mother delivered a strange lump along with her placenta, 2 days after his birth,  so I think it may have interfered with his development.  It's too bad because he was marked pretty much like a Jacob and it would have been neat to see how he turned out.

We have two young  75% Jacob/ 25% Tunis ewes.  One is two horned with a blaze on her face and white socks.  The other is all black with 4 horns - her brother was spotted and polled and my son used him for a 4H market lamb last year.  They have wonderful fleeces but didn't get pregnant this year so they are going on the cull list.

Heather Hettick
Moonstruck Farm
Creston, OH
www.moonstruckfarm.wordpress.com



Jennifer     wrote:

Havve some interesting lambs.

We have a 4Her who keeps her sheep with us.  She has a 1/4 lincoln 3/4 Rambou. aged natural colored ewe.  She has had issues with too large of lambs in the last few years when bred to her lincoln ram.  nice, almost pure black lambs.. typucally with a spot on their heads like their his year, she AIed her ewe to a UK Corriedale... but she didnt take, so last minute, she asked if she could breed to one of my Jacob rams.  Of course, I was done breeding, so it wasnt a big deal.....
She lambed out this week, 2 nice 10 pound ram lambs.  They are spotted up like Jacobs.. one is a bit too dark, ears are WAY too big and head shape is off... but, good looking lambs, that had a more pointy nose than the ones in other years lambs, which allowed an assistance free delivery. a first for this ewe! 

Anyhow.. we were weighing them this morning, and it FEELS like they could be 4 horn lambs... however, instead of raised buds, they have depressions where horns would be... like a polled sheep....but 4 distinct spots....

We did a similar cross for a CVM ewe owned by another 4Her this year who had similar problems with oversized lambs..... she had large lambs, almost solid black, but both ram and ewe lambs have a weak set of horns (2 horns each) 

Both kids are making wethers out of the boys for the freezer (they are both talking about even showing them as finewool market lambs.. we have a class for that) The kiddo with the ewe lamb is keeping it in her natural colored flock as a breeing ewe,

Any input....the horn issues are quite curious...Also in one of the lambs born this week,., I may be mistaken, and overanalysing, but it looks like it may have a VERY mild nick to the upper eye lid...


Jennifer Tucker
Moose Mtn Ranch


Jennifer Tucker
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20120519/34662a23/attachment-0001.htm>

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Jacob-list mailing list
Jacob-list at jacobsheep.com
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/jacob-list


End of Jacob-list Digest, Vol 97, Issue 24
******************************************