Jo-Le Farms

New puppy ... Jiff

2010-11-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Jiff is pictured shortly after arriving here at 8 weeks of age. She was acquired from Candy Kennedy and is sired by her Imported Moss, a son of Millichap's Ben and is out of her Imported Jet, a daughter of Jim Cropper's Dan. Nothing more exciting than a new puppy.

2010 Wiltshire cross ram lamb

2010-07-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Even though both of his parents are polled and AI sired by polled New Zealand and Australian rams, the first lamb born in 2010 is happily sprouting horns. As a result of our initial use of Wiltshire Horn semen on our base flock we expect a certain percentage of horned offspring out of some of our rams.

Tex - Purebred Wiltshire horn ram lamb

2010-07-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Purchased from Dan Nigh in Harper TX, Tex is a son of the imported Australian ram Wonoka 271/02 and is 3/4 Australian breeding. Guess it goes without saying that we'll be seeing more horns popping up next year.

Lambing draws near for yearlings sired by Australian Wiltipoll semen

2010-02-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

The top three pics are all yearlings AI sired by the Wiltipoll ram GeeTee317. They all raised lambs last year as ewe lambs. The ewes in the bottom pic are being supplemented with alfalfa as lambing draws near.

New House

2009-12-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

We continue to spend all our spare time working on the new house. We expect to move in after this last big push.

The house is coming right along now.

A break in the weather, take the young dogs out!

2009-12-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

Farm tour for KHSI Annual Expo

2009-09-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

Even though we only have one purebred Katahdin in our flock, we were one of two commercial hair sheep operations on the 2009 KHSI Annual Expo farm tour. We were told to expect 12 to 15 people, nearly 50 showed up. We also provided a variety of of sheep for their hair classing certification.

Hell Boy is growing

2009-08-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hell boy is one of two horned ram lambs that will be available for sale this year.

JLC 1-8

2009-08-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

JLC 1-8 previously pictured as a lamb last year has a grown into a superb animal. As you can see this New Zealand LAI sired yearling is nearly 100 % shed out at the time of this picture.

Breeding Program

2009-05-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

Why the long upgrade process to shedding sheep?

When we decided to breed the wool off our flock in 1999 (I had some back problems and couldn't shear my own sheep anymore) our flock was primarily a commercial Coopworth flock at that time. Not the best choice to turn into shedding sheep if you're in a hurry perhaps, but with over 25 years of production records running on a grass based, low nutritional plane, about the best low maintenance flock we could have made I think. During those 25+ years, we've seen many fads come and go in the sheep business, the latest, greatest purebreds that are going to revolutionize the sheep industry etc. While most of those fads and the people promoting them have come and gone, we were always open to experimenting with a little of everything that looked promising to our commercial operation during that period. Most importantly though, we scored the results of those experiments on the basis of solid production records. Consequently, it simply was not realistic to expect that we could bring any group of purebred shedding sheep into our environment and management system and expect them to perform as well as our existing flock. The old Irish saying that "You raise horses for courses" holds true and we had been raising sheep for our particular "course" for many generations by then. I'm still bought into the general Coopworth philosophy. It's a breed that was developed on the premise that a man should be able to shepherd a thousand sheep by himself and only need outside help for shearing. We simply wanted to eliminate the shearing. We lamb in the field, dont routinely trim feet and provide just a little supplemental feed to our grass based pasture during the last trimester of pregnancy.

The process

Our practices and philosophy are very much the same as those of the European Nolana project. i.e. Start with the best of the wool sheep that have traditionally performed well in your area, set clear, measurable objectives and utilize rams of the best shedding breeds available. (see the Nolana link for more information on their project)To that end we initially brought in some high percentage black headed Dorper rams, played with some Katahdins a little bit and followed those up with some high percentage White Dorper rams in an effort to get back to a white flock. We would probably be producing all shedding sheep by now if we hadn't made some back crosses to our best foot bloodlines in an attempt to salvage our feet. Even in our wet environment, we haven't routinely trimmed feet in over 20 years and had no intention of trading one backbreaking chore(shearing) for another (foot trimming). We did our first A.I. breedings in 2004, breeding the best of our 2nd and 3rd generation shedding crosses to the Dorper ram "CCD0001E", the White Dorper ram "Spargo" and the Wiltshire Horn ram "Meadowvale Valour". (you can see pictures of these rams by following the Super Sire link) The ram lambs produced in that A.I. breeding have had a major impact on our flock the last few years. We have been especially impressed with the Wiltshire Horn crosses and were able to acquire Wiltshire Poll semen from New Zealand and Australia.

Hell Boy

2009-05-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

We have some horns sprouting up in the second generation.

Next Generation

2009-05-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Ram lamb sired by New Zealand AI project

Elvis

2008-04-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Elvis, JLC4-8 is one of two 5/8 Wiltshire Poll ram lambs AI sired by Whata635 of New Zealand who dna tested RR for the scrapie resistance gene.

Another country heard from

2008-04-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

The 1st lamb born in the second AI group sired by the Wiltipoll Gee Tee 317 of Australia.

JLC6-8 is a big growthy good looking girl, also 5/8 Wiltshire Poll whose mother is a 100% shedder.

Then and now

2008-04-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

The 1st lamb of 2008 previously shown as a newborn is shown here at 90 days of age. JLC1-8 is 5/8 Wiltshire Poll and was AI sired by the New Zealand Wiltshire Poll ram, Whata 635. Whata a nice big growthy boy.

Congo

2008-02-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

JLC181-5, this AI sired son of the Dorper CCD001E is certainly one of the most striking lambs we've ever produced. He is owned by the Anderson Farm of Stayton, Oregon

Breeding program

2008-01-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

Why the long upgrade process to shedding sheep?

When we decided to breed the wool off our flock in 1999 (I had some back problems and couldn't shear my own sheep anymore) our flock was primarily a commercial Coopworth flock at that time. Not the best choice to turn into shedding sheep if you're in a hurry perhaps, but with over 25 years of production records running on a grass based, low nutritional plane, about the best low maintenance flock we could have made I think. During those 25+ years, we've seen many fads come and go in the sheep business, the latest, greatest purebreds that are going to revolutionize the sheep industry etc. While most of those fads and the people promoting them have come and gone, we were always open to experimenting with a little of everything that looked promising to our commercial operation during that period. Most importantly though, we scored the results of those experiments on the basis of solid production records. Consequently, it simply was not realistic to expect that we could bring any group of purebred shedding sheep into our environment and management system and expect them to perform as well as our existing flock. The old Irish saying that "You raise horses for courses" holds true and we had been raising sheep for our particular "course" for many generations by then. I'm still bought into the general Coopworth philosophy. It's a breed that was developed on the premise that a man should be able to shepherd a thousand sheep by himself and only need outside help for shearing. We simply wanted to eliminate the shearing. We lamb in the field, dont routinely trim feet and provide just a little supplemental feed to our grass based pasture during the last trimester of pregnancy.

The process

Our practices and philosophy are very much the same as those of the European Nolana project. i.e. Start with the best of the wool sheep that have traditionally performed well in your area, set clear, measurable objectives and utilize rams of the best shedding breeds available. (see the Nolana link for more information on their project)

To that end we initially brought in some high percentage black headed Dorper rams, played with some Katahdins a little bit and followed those up with some high percentage White Dorper rams in an effort to get back to a white flock. We would probably be producing all shedding sheep by now if we hadn't made some back crosses to our best foot bloodlines in an attempt to salvage our feet. Even in our wet environment, we haven't routinely trimmed feet in over 20 years and had no intention of trading one backbreaking chore(shearing) for another (foot trimming). We did our first A.I. breedings in 2004, breeding the best of our 2nd and 3rd generation shedding crosses to the Dorper ram "CCD0001E", the White Dorper ram "Spargo" and the Wiltshire Horn ram "Meadowvale Valour". (you can see pictures of these rams by following the Super Sire link) The ram lambs produced in that A.I. breeding have had a major impact on our flock the last few years. We have been especially impressed with the Wiltshire Horn crosses and were able to acquire Wiltshire Poll semen from New Zealand and Australia which we used this year.

Sheep Farm

2007-12-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

We are a natural grass fed sheep operation. Our focus is on quality animals that require very little care. Sheep are herbivores that thrive on mixed forage pastures so that is what we provide.

Our base flock was Coopworth, and Border Leicester cross, and we have now brought in Dorpers, Wiltshire Horn, Wiltipolls, and Katahdin to develop the low care sheep we desire. We want only the best lambs to grow for our customers to be able to offer a fair price.