...sheep!
Yes, I breed sheep :-) After looking for the right wool for reconstructing archaeological textiles for a while, I decided to grow it myself. Well, not on my head of course, but on sheep of my own.
It all started with 3 Gute sheep, an old swedish breed from Gotland quite similar to bone and wool finds from the Iron Age. Now I have 12 sheep of 4 different breeds - some purebreed, some mixed. My aim is to supply wool for my own projects from Stone Age to Late Medieval - and enjoy the nice and friendly animals sheep are...
It's been a busy month with all the ewes giving birth to little fluffy kids. But now they're finally all settled in, it's a real pleasure to watch the lambs hob around as only lambs can :-)
I only had 3 ewes with the ram last fall. I bought a young ram at the sheep gathering in september which looked very promising - and his offspring also looks promising!
See for yourself:
The black-and-white lamb is Loki with his mum Edda, he's 75% Gute Sheep, 25% Weiße Heidschnucke.
Then there is Enno with his mum Lillemor ("little mum" in swedish), he's half Gute, half Gotland sheep (a polled breed from Gotland).
And the only ewe lamb this year, Lotta. She's a purebreed Gute shep and halfsister to Edda.
At the moment they grow visibly from day to day; Lotta is the oldest with 3 weeks and her wool is beginning to change colour. Most Gute lambs are born black, but only face and legs stay black, the wool normally changes to a light till medium grey while growing. Both rams and ewes are horned and Lotta and Loki already show little horn stubbles. Maybe Enno is going to stay polled, the chances are 50/50 as his mother is polled and his father Birger sports a set of beautiful curved horns...
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