Well, summer’s moving on. It has been raining (a lot). The hops are growing like crazy, the fields are wet, wet, wet. Farm stress has been worrying about the Dutch Barn restoration and when to bring the hay in. But last week, we got a big ray of sunshine which just keeps shining.
In December 2012, we got a ram named Max from one of our neighbors, the Subiks at Hilltop Acres Farm. Max is a registered Texel ram. His lambs are calm, friendly, fast growing, and darn-right "meaty". We love Max. We love him so much, that we have decided to concentrate to a small degree on selective breeding in the Texel breed of sheep. Last Saturday, we received four young ewes (2 yearlings and two lambs) from Fred Hemmerly of Silvara Valley Farm in Pennsylvania.
In keeping with the general theme of our farm, they are named after varieties of hops: Cascade, Willamette (Willie), Cluster, and Chinook. We hope that they thrive as well as the hops are doing this year.
And to make it official we’re joining the Texel Sheep Breeders Society.
The Texel breed was developed on the Isle of Texel off the coast of The Netherlands early in the nineteenth century. The breed is a mix of a short-tailed variety of sheep and limited Lincoln and Leicester Longwool breeds mixed in during the mid-1800s. The emphasis on the breed is sheep that produce heavily muscled lambs without too much body fat. They have the added advantage of doing very well of our pasture-based rearing system. The lambs grow well without added grain. So far, we have only encountered Texels that are calm and friendly – characteristics of great value when you are pasture rearing.
