It occurred to me yesterday that with the new pastures and the age old issue of grass shortage solved, I no longer have to pretend I'm not going to add a lamb or two to the flock every year. Been doing this all my life and it's always been, no we're eating them all... unless there's a special one. When the inevitable special one arrives, I agonize over keeping her on, and then keep her anyway. Well, no more apologizing, because feeding her won't be a problem. So now I'm thinking about how this might go in the next few years.
Coinciding with this revelation is the fact that I've now had my ram for three years, which means his daughters have already been added to all my advanced bloodlines, which means until we get a new ram, the lambs I most want to get one of have all been got. This frees me to expand sideways and keep a lamb from someone else, a good move for diversity and the possibility of keeping a meatier lamb, which I wouldn't normally. (They are crossbreds with one side of the flock geared to wool and the other side geared to meat.) I say that particularly because one of my meatier ewes has a very interesting wool gene herself, which I am dying to capture in a baby with other, better wool qualities in addition. This gene doesn't show itself for at least a year or two, and it might be recessive and currently unattainable anyway, which makes it a gamble to keep on one of her lambs instead of another who's a sure thing for something else. She's also a nutcase, which I certainly don't want duplicated. If she has another black ewe lamb next spring, I'll have to think about it.
