Shetlands are a primitive breed. The rams usually weight in about 110 lbs. and the ewes are about 85 lbs. Some may be lighter or heavier. They have their own personalities. Shetlands can be charmers. Especially when they want treats. We have a flock of cookie monsters. It is the easiest way for us to train them to come.
They are intelligent and can learn how things work quickly. We have a few that learned how to open the gates to let themselves free range. Yes I woke up one morning to my ewes on the front lawn munching on the grass that was growing there. We have learned to keep the gated padlocked to contain some of the smarter sheep.
We are waiting on the arrival of this year's lambs. We have hopefully managed to get the ewes bred this year. Ava, Cara, Heather, Ezri, Gerty, Sanga, Chetta and Sapphire are our current ewes. That is 8 ewes we are hoping produce for us this year.
We have several new ewes that were bred a bit later than we normally like, but that could not be helped. Chetta, Sanga, Ava, Cara and Sapphire are our newest girls. We have no idea what we will have with these ladies. They were all bred to our ram Wrangler.
As we only have one ram we are limited with our breeding program. We do plan to add a ram or two. We may even keep one of the ram lambs we produce this year to breed with the newer girls. I am hoping to get a Black or Dark Grey ram to add bit more color to our flock.
We will see what we manage to produce this year. Will the lambs be all rams, mostly rams, all ewes, mostly ewes or will it be an even split? We won't know until the ewes lamb. That could be any day now or they may hold out for another month. You never know with these ladies.