Thursday, November 14, 2013

Part 3-Vemetry Flock

I was so impressed by seeing a couple hundred moorit ewes moving in unison in this picturesque setting, that I was momentarily speechless.  For those that know me, that's a rare occurrence, so keep your snarky comments to a minimum, you know who you are....

The Vemetry flock was wonderful and Hamish Hunter, Vemetry's manager, could not have been nicer.  Hamish is the a 3rd generation crofter on this land and so he knows a thing or two about Shetland sheep.  He patiently answered all our questions while we picked his brain for little tidbits of information.  ( I loved his accent)  We spent a lot of time going through the rams, old and young and then the moorit ewe flock.  We didn't get our hands on any white purebred ewes because they spend their breeding life on an island and Hamish using his row boat to take rams over and back during tupping time.  Can you imagine having to load you ram in a row boat and take him to his ewes on an island?  Boggles the mind. 
Hamish and the mature rams. 

Their home

Hamish told us that the rams are ready for tupping when the skin turns very pink on the rams.  (didn't know that)

Nice crimp...dense fleece on this guy, we really had to pull hard to get it to part this much. 

Nice butts on these boys. 

I loved the length on their moorits

One of my favorite head styles

Young ram that had quite a bit of cheek and poll wool

This ram was (I think) 4 yrs. old.  Garrett might have to correct me, he remembers details like that so well.

Lovely spiral to this guys' horns

I love taking the group shots

Ok, so now I'm getting dangerously close to stalker type behavior with the pictures of the guys.

yep,,,,,,,stalker, totally

At least I wasn't handling all of them like someone else I know..........sheesh G, put the poor sheep back with his buddies and stop ooohing and ahhing


The moorit ewes heading back to the hills via the driveway

Hamish and his very kind wife treated us to tea, cookies, cakes, homemade soup and I was ready for a nap I was so content and relaxed.  But sleep wasn't on the itinerary just yet, so off we go to the next stop. 

2 comments:

  1. Goodness, what an amazing trip. I just found your blog, and was wishing that I was secretly in your suitcase. LOL We are new to the Shetland sheep world. We have two for now, and I’m praying for more. We also just got a Maremma puppy. We are having problems with him chewing on one of our sheep (just fixed him). Have you ever had this problem?

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  2. You need to blog more
    Thank you so much for today's comment x

    ReplyDelete

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Mike and I

Mike and I
Mike and I at Nick and Emily's wedding

Raised beds & chickens coops

Raised beds & chickens coops
Can't wait for this stuff to actually be food....