Last week Teaberry, our Cormo ram, came down from the hilltop in Andy's truck. We call the ram's first day with the ewe flock "big love day". Lots of excitement. Teaberry waited patiently in the truck while we adjusted sheep coats on the ladies and trimmed their toenails. He needed no coaxing to enter the pen, so happy to greet his girls.

All of the Cormo ewes have lambed before, so this group is looking pretty happy and settled. Everyone knows what's expected. Tea is not wasting any time. I can always tell which ewe he's pursuing; they'll always be standing together, sometimes a little ways off from the others. If he's standing with two ewes, then it's likely that both ewes are cycling and vying for his attention.

He had been following the ewe standing just to his left all morning; hence the brown marks on her coat. It appears the ewe in the back left has also been receiving attention.

Here taking a breather. 

Teaberry isn't the only ram at work. I've decided to give our junior moorit ram, Chai, a test run. He's in with 5 black cross sheep, though I'm not sure how lucky he's been. They're all much older, except for Stella, and also larger than Chai. And at first they were completely dismissive. Poor little guy. I've only seen him show interest in one ewe, Comet, a few days ago. He seemed to be figuring things out and she was being patient.

You might be wondering why I'm using a ram lamb for breeding this year. We're fishing for the moorit color gene, a recessive trait for true brown coloration, in our ewes. It seems the most likely place to find the gene is in our mixed bred ewes of color, since they have the greatest genetic diversity behind them. Since our Cormos have all been bred away from color, the likelihood that a Cormo ewe may carry the recessive moorit gene are smaller.

Several of my fine black wool ewes are now middle age, by sheep standards. I don't want to lose this year to try for moorit lambs. It will be so interesting to see what happens. If Chai gets lucky, that is. That's him in the center, flanked by Comet, left, and Star, right. Comet, Star and Ursa are sisters, three of a set of quads born to Cocoa in 2004. Their brother, Oreo, lives in NY state. They are black sheep (you can tell by their black faces and legs), even thought their wool has faded in color with age.

Elsewhere on Patten Hill today . . .

My neighbor's bull, taken with my iphone camera while on my morning walk.