Shearing Day - Gotland Sheep Shearing

We finally found a sheep shearer in IL, Hallelujah!!  He got us on the calendar for shearing on April 4th.  I thought that sounded like a great day since I didn't expect lambing until a little later in April.  As we rushed around trying to get everything ready for shearing I noticed Kajsa was hanging off by herself, her back was hunched and she wasn't acting normal.  I continued to watch her and pretty soon she is curling her lip.  DING, it finally struck me, she's in labor!!  As I've told you, we're flying by the seat of our pants with sheep.  Lucky us, the sheep shearer showed up just at the right day and time for us and Kajsa.  He took one look and said I see two little feet and a nose, you'll have a lamb in a few minutes.  Sure enough, within a few minutes we had a lamb on the ground.  The shearer took another look and said there's another one coming.  How exciting!!  A couple of minutes later we had two lambs on the ground, one little ewe and one little ram lamb.  We left Kajsa with the job of cleaning up the lambs and the shearing began.

This photo was taken just before the lambs were born.  She has that look of, help I don't feel well on her face.

 



The ram was the first  to walk into the shearing corner.  He went in looking all woolly and completely black in color. 

He bounced out of the corner nicely shaved, strutting his new Gotland gray coloring.  I would have never guessed that he would turn grey.  Gotlands are totally amazing with their color changes.

As soon as Kajsa had her lambs cleaned up, he went ahead and sheared her also.  That made it much easier for the lambs to find the utter.  Kajsa also had a major color transformation.  When she came to us last summer, she was very brown and black in color, she is now very silver.

When he was finished shearing we had four very large bags of beautiful Gotland fleece.   Can't wait to get them skirted and shipped off to the mill. 

Shearing is finished, they're good to go until fall.  We began with three ewes and one ram.  Lambing season is over and we now have two new little ram lambs and three little ewe lambs.  Wow a flock can multiply rather quickly :)

It's been amazing fun beginning our adventures in sheep.  I'd like to thank Kim Goodling of Grand View Farm for the beautiful healthy flock of Gotland sheep and the many hours of mentoring through emails.

Have a Wonderful Day!
Angie