New Breeds!

We have recently gotten involved with two other breeds of sheep, the beautiful longwools Cotswolds and Wensleydales.  We now have a flock of one ram and two ewes of the Cotswold breed, and two lovely 73% Wensleydale ewes.  We were also fortunate to have been able to buy three outstanding white Angora does, a five-year-old doe and her two daughters, three and two years old.  We are looking forward to working with all these great girls (and boy).  And shearing time will bring a new variety of fibers to our shop! 

We hope to be able to offer lambs and kids from the longwools and Angoras.  Of course, our main focus will still be on the Finns, but I am excited to be involved in the preservation of these different rare breeds. 

Our shearing plans are not finalized, but these are what I am considering shearing at the moment:

Lempi (gray Finn ewe), Curly, Samantha, Nell, Feather, and Popcorn (Angoras), and the three Cotswold sheep that currently are not named.  I am toying with the idea of leaving the Wensley girls in fleece for longer than six months.  I would love to play with the long curls.  Toivo, Vinny, Eero, Rusetti, and Maria will be shorn in the spring.  This will be the first time that Toivo and Vinny will be clipped only once per year. 

I am probably going to sell both the mohair and the Cotswold wool washed.  Most people seem to prefer longwool and mohair washed, and I can understand why.  It is a task that can only be appreciated by those who have done it!  The longer the staple, the harder it is to clean.  But the results are worth it!

We will be renting a reverse badger black Angora buck, Stryker, from Oak Willow Farm, to breed these fine Angora does.  Eero will be breeding my three Finn ewes, and my Cotswold ram will be breeding the Cotswold ewes.  I am not yet sure about my Wensleydale ewes.  My Pygmy doe Lulu is hopefully bred to Sonny Boy, the Pygora.

 

Our Cotswolds and Wensleydales

Post-Fair Update

We show at the Ingham County Fair every year both in open class and 4-H.  This was the first year we decided to bring our Finnsheep, and we also took three Pygmy goats and our two Angora goats.  We also exhibited six Finn fleeces, two Angora mohair fleeces, plus handspun yarns.  Overall it was a very good year.

Toivo, our three year old gray piebald Finn ram, placed Reserve Champion in the Any Other Breed Ram category.  A katmoget fawn Shetland that was bred by David Knight took Grand Champion, so there was very good competition.  Congratulations to David Knight for this win!  I am very happy that the rare breeds are being recognized and shown off to the public.  I hope that this continues!  It was a fun show.

Vinny, Toivo’s son, took Grand Champion in the Open Class Any Other Breed Yearling Ram class.  He appeared to enjoy the show.

My yearling Angora doeling Samantha took Reserve Champion in her class, as did her fleece in the Fiber Goat Fleece competition.  Curly, my two year old wether took Grand Champion in his class and in the Fiber Goat Fleece competition.

Eero, my FBA brown Finn ram, took Grand Champion ram’s fleece at the sheep fleece contest!  All the fleeces received blue ribbons in their categories.

I received Best in Show with my 4-H handspun yarn and Sweepstakes in open class for another skein.

I think that the public really enjoyed Vinny and Toivo hamming it up at the fairgrounds, and I enjoyed promoting the rare breeds.   We are now relaxing and I will be posting my fleeces online for sale soon.

I picked up our newest fiber pet, a PyNigora white buckling from David Knight.  His name is Patrick, and he is very cute and will have Type C fleece, I imagine.  He is quite playful and I am thinking that I will neuter him, as we do not have the facilities or the does to keep yet another intact buck.  It is already challenging to deal with three rams and two bucks.  Sonny Boy will be breeding Lulu, my Pygmy doe, sooner or later for Pygora kids.  I do not think that Samantha, our Angora yearling doe, is ready to breed yet this year.

New Arrivals!

We are happy to announce that we have two new arrivals.  First, we have our very first FBA registered ewe, Maria.  She is white, but I think that she carries for black.  She has an A+ fleece, and is out of fecund lines.  We are thrilled to have her and cannot wait to see her lambs, which will be sired by Eero.  She comes from Bramble Berry Finnsheep.

Next, we have a white Pygora Type A buck.  He has an impressive set of horns, and while he is currently shorn, he will have a lovely fleece.  I am very excited to be working with his fiber.  I have plans to breed him to our does.  He is high percentage Angora, and is not registered.  He has a very nice temperament.  I will be posting pictures soon, both of him and Maria.  His name is Sonny Boy, and he comes from Oak Willow Farm.

It has been very warm lately, but all seem to be taking the heat well.  I am already making plans for our breedings this fall.

2011 Lambing Season

Welcome to Finnish Fiber Farm!  This year we have had an exciting lambing season with our new FBA registered brown Eldorado ram, Eero.  We had six lambs born this year, all either solid black or with white markings.

Rusetti was the first ewe to give birth- she had twins, one ram(Oiva, see picture below) and one ewe, on 2/28/11.  The ewe, Helmi, we are keeping, but the ram is for sale!  Lempi then had triplets on 3/5/11, two ewes and a ram lamb I wethered and sold.  Then Dorothy had a single ram lamb, sire unknown but for sure not Eero.  This lamb is also for sale.

Our hope is that this blog will inform others of what goes on in raising sheep, goats, and Angora rabbits, hopefully educate, and let customers know what we have for sale.

Please visit our website at http://www.finnishfiberfarm.webs.com/ to meet our flock in the meantime!