A Black Sheep
They say it’s good luck to have a black sheep in the flock. I guess that means we’re in for a lucky year on the farm! It’s our 15th season having sheep, but it’s the first for having a black one born to our flock. And there’s no mistaking—this little one is black!
Back when we had Hampshire sheep, it was common for the lambs to be born with their baby wool black or dark gray, but this soon wore off to be replaced by curly white fleece. The only black remaining was the hairy fur on their legs, faces, and ears, which is much more like the hair on a black Labrador. It only grows so long and is sleek and a little bristly to shed dirt and moisture.
As we began adding dairy sheep genetics to our flock, with white-faced Dorset, East Fresian, and Lacaune, legs and faces at first became speckled and spotted black and white, or a muted brownish gray. Some girls now have pure white faces, or only a little coloring around their eyes and noses, hence some names of our ewes like “Mascara” or “Cookie.”
More new rams came onto the farm as time progressed, including the wide-hipped Clun Forest named “Puck” because of his elfish ears and a delicate Finnsheep named “Veli,” which means “brother” in Finnish. Veli has a dusty brown fleece with a brown-and-white face in the classic “badger markings” of the breed.
White is the dominant genetic color in sheep, with darker colors being recessive. Veli’s lovely soft brown is less common than the black of one of his siblings. While it is unlikely that we’ll ever have a brown-fleeced lamb on our farm because the ewes do not carry this characteristic, the lady who raised Veli wanted to keep his special genetics going forward and recommended him to us over the black-fleeced ram. Someday, the combination might be just right.
However, if any of the ewes carry a recessive color gene (through all the cross breeding between the different types of sheep over the years), it might be possible that a child of Veli could be born with color. We’ve had Veli for several years now, so some of his children are having lambs this spring.
During shearing, we were surprised to find one yearling ewe (we called her “Cocoa” because of her dark chocolate colored face) had dark gray wool on her stub of a tail and little flecks of gray throughout her fleece. It was almost like she was polka-dotted like a palomino pony. She hasn’t delivered yet, so who knows what colors of babies she might have.
But it was actually a white-faced ewe who bore the twins that look like they’re right out of a fairy tale—“While one grew bright as is the sun, yet coal-black grew the other one.” Shocks of white on its face, similar to Veli’s markings, give the ewe lamb a quizzical look, plus a few white tufts wisp around the hocks, but the rest is black. Definitely black.
Right now, the lambs are with their mother in a special pen called a “jug” in the south wing of the barn. In a few days, they’ll be old enough to earn their own ear tags and move out with the other moms and babes who are big enough to be romping around. Called a “mixing pen,” the space where the new ewe and lamb pairs join each other can at first be confusing for the new families.
“Where’s my babies?!” baahs one ewe, looking about frantically. “Come here right now!”
The little ones, clueless, look about at the other mothers with bulging udders, bleating, “Are you my momma?”
After a few minutes, the ewe and lambs figure out the new situation, and the mother stakes out a corner for herself. With springs in their toes, the lambs frolic about in the pen together like a gang of school children. It won’t be too long before the older lambs and their mothers can begin to play in the loafing pen behind the barn—stretching their legs and learning about grass and fences.
Remember, you can watch the remaining pregnant mother sheep (and now see the lambs in the mixing pen) by visiting our live barn camera site at www.streamn.com/berlage Enjoy the view! I’ll be looking forward to seeing that new little black lamb prance and play with the rest. See you down on the farm sometime.
