The making of our freezer lambs..

As the trends turn more and more toward home-grown, healthy, grass-fed, small carbon "footprint" foods and supplies, marketing our farm produce should become easier and easier.

Our sheep are commercial(not registered) Dorpers a relatively "new" breed of shedding meat type sheep. Meat sheep, definitely! Lambs generally weigh about 7 pounds at birth and will weigh between 80-100 pounds by the time they are 4-5 months of age, and incredible rate of gain! Shedding, yes, they shed off their wooly winter coat when the weather gets warm, usually retaining a strip of wool and hair down the middle of their back. They look like they are wearing a bad hair-piece, but it works wonderfully to protect them from the summer heat and keep the skin on their back from sunburning.

The most recent purchase for the farm was a group of 20 pregnant ewes which came from Jim Joerger in Missouri. The ewes were very pregnant when we purchased, some already had lambs at their side and several delivered lambs within a few days of arriving at the farm here in Oklahoma. The rest of the flock are sporting large pregnant bellies and will most likely lamb within the next 3-4 weeks.

We will have freezer lambs available for the Easter season 2008, check back for price list and to order your lamb for Easter. Our ewes are bred to lamb several times through the year so we will have lambs available all year long.

Here is a bit of breed information from the American Dorper Breeder's Society website: http://www.dorperamerica.org/

Dorper Sheep – Meat Sheep for the Modern Producer
Hardy and Adaptable - Dorper Sheep are highly adaptable and do well in harsh, extensive conditions as well as in more intensive operations.
Excellent Maternal Qualities - Ewes are excellent mothers and heavy milkers. Lambs are vigorous and have high survivability.
Long Breeding Season - Dorpers are non-seasonal or have an extended breeding season. They can easily be managed to produce three lamb crops in two years.Reproductive Efficiency-Dorpers are very fertile and prolific. Lambing rates of 180% can be achieved per lambing. They are early maturing and will produce a lamb crop at one year of age.
Pre-potency - Dorper sheep cross well with commercial ewes of other breeds and as terminal sires produce fast growing, muscular lambs.
Non-Selective Grazers - Dorpers are excellent converters of a wide range of forage types and they excel in grazing or weed control operations.
Heat and Insect Tolerant - Because of their Blackhead Persian origin, Dorpers have natural tolerance to high temperatures and heavy insect populations. They are productive in areas where other breeds barely survive.
Parasite Tolerant - Studies indicate Dorper Sheep are better able to deal with a parasite burden than many other breeds.

Sharing farmstead life..

Today dawned bright and clear and windstill, a new experience after days and days of high wind under gray and threatening skies, first blowing hard from the north, then blowing hard from the south.

Trees now dropping damaged limbs from our most recent ice storm as if preparing for spring's debut which promises to be just around the corner.



The bouncing lambs revel in the sunshine, popping up like fuzzy popcorn then racing around and around their paddock...

The littlest lamb, a single from a yearling mother follows tentatively behind the larger lambs...wanting to be included but a little scared to leave the security of his mother too far behind. This lamb must rely on the kindness of the shepherd, as his mother is not producing enough milk to sustain him. SO twice a day he slurps down a bottle of warm nurishment from an impersonal bottle then returns to the comfort of his mother's nearly empty udder. The little ewe is an attentive mother yet for some unknown reason she has very little milk to give her little one. One strike against her....a repeat of this performance with the next lambing and she will go for slaughter. There is no room on the productive farmstead for riders! All must produce and prosper or be replaced with those who will.



Horses stand broadside to the warming sunshine, soaking up the sun's relaxing warmth..Foals lay stretched flat on their sides, melted into the peaceful oblivion of contented sleep. Their world is safe, bellies are full and now after days of cold and damp they are warm once again.



Soon the youngsters will start their formal training, the foundation for their life's work as sport-partners for their human companions. Skills gently taught in the first days will set the tone for the rest of their lives. How important it is to consider what is first taught to a young horse and even more important WHO teaches them! A bully trainer can terrify a timid young horse and a timid trainer can allow an overly confident youngster to develop into the "boss" in the training sessions and life to come.

We work with our foals from their first day here on the farm to make every contact with humans a positive experieince. Foals are handled gently from birth and even necessary unpleasant experiences such as medications and vaccinations are administered with as much kindness as possible. It's amazing how forgiving foals will be when somewhat ugly things are followed by lots of gentle words and scratching those unreachable itchy places! Even timid cautious foals can be won over when the right itchy spot is found!




Most of our young Sporthorses are Shire/Arabian and Percheron/Arabian, the ultimate blend of size and substance combined with "fire and elegance"!