In winter? are we crazy?!
We have some exciting news here on the farm! After putting our heart and soul into finding a perfect match for Jess, we have PUPPIES! Jess had a litter of three gorgeous ABCA border collies pups (2 girls and 1 male) on November 13th. We already knew Jess was a good sheepdog and now we know that she is also an excellent mother. The sire is an imported border collie stud, named “Wallace”, from overseas. He is biddable, keen, and has shown a lot of promise here in the USA. We will be retaining a female from the litter and the other two littermates will be going to local fellow handlers. I will try to update our social media with as many pictures and videos as I can in the coming weeks!
This year we attempted breeding out of season for fall lambs without any interventions (light modifications, CIDRs, etc). Well…. the results were less than expected and we welcomed four very nice fullblood ram lambs at the end of October. I plan to grow out these young herd-sire prospects over winter and they will be available for their new herds this spring. I will also have my eye on any who really shine and be able to contend at our breed show.
With less than expected fall lambs, this means our spring lambing (March-April) will be our biggest yet! We already have a few shepherds on our waitlist for dorper sheep, so if you are interested in adding dorpers to your flock, please contact us (Heather at 970-371-3592).
So to answer the question of “new life in winter?”: Thankfully, we have a barn that helps keep new lambs safe from chill and helps us organize mamas and maintain their health during these cold months. Winter and early spring is an ideal time to have lambs in Colorado due to the reduction in active parasites and diseases that decrease productivity and growth in lambs. We also think that lambs will increase their feed (calorie intake) naturally during this time thus leading to bigger more robust lambs by summer. As far as Jess having her litter in winter… it was half fate and half choice. I didn’t want to miss any more trials this upcoming summer and winter pups would be raised during the sheepdog “off season”.
Thank you for checking in and we hope to keep everyone up to date as we start 2023!
The Powell Family