He was born in September 2011, so he's still a young'un, and raring to go already! We bought him from a friend down the road, as we were looking for a good-tempered young ram lamb to add to our farm for the 2013-2014 season.
Ramses is a black faced sheep (can't you tell?) but he's not a purebred - if we wanted a purebred, we'd have paid a LOT of money, and we're just a small family farm, without a huge amount of cash to spend.
We were simply looking for a healthy young ram to add new blood to our stock, and Ramses fit the bill. Because our sheep are mainly for meat, and their wool is low-grade (for carpets, rather than delicate little merino luxury fashion items for spoilt wealthy women), keeping purebred sheep doesn't matter to us. Hybrid vigour and health does, as does good temperament, because we have young children.
Ramses is too young to become a father just yet. For this mating season, Rambo (our current, older ram, who is the father of our young ewes) will be the lucky man again with our four mature ewes. We'll be keeping his four daughters separate from him of course - you don't breed father to daughter!
Breeding season, which is called "tupping" is in autumn, and already Rambo is hanging out near the fence, and baaaa-ing lovingly to his ladies, in the hopes they'll come close enough for some wine and chocolates ;-)
After this breeding season, Rambo will go back to his owner, John, at the farm across the road. Then next autumn, Ramses will be big and mature enough to breed with both the older ewes and our younger ewes. He'll be in clover.
I don't think he realises yet that he's hit the gravy train!
At the moment, Ramses is in quarantine in the Hazelnut orchard. He'll be there for two weeks, and seems quite happy settling in to his new life here at Hazeltree Farm.
Have a lovely day!
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