Happy Easter

We had a colorful Easter and Rachel liked having help on her annual Easter egg hunt! They hopped right to it!
Happy Easter from us and all our buns here at Sweet Buns Rabbitry www.sweetbunsrabbitry.com. I've included a special tribute to Samantha the Mini Lop who posed in the Easter Basket last year. She passed earlier this month and was a fine friend. She will be missed.

Meet "Davenitch R Mere Everlasting Hope"

I didn't want to announce we were on the list for a female Cardigan Welsh Corgi puppy until I knew it was a sure thing and this week we picked up Hope from her breeder, Connie Whan. We met Hope when she was 3 weeks old and hoped she would turn out as a potential show prospect so we called her Hope early on. She is the only brindle female out of 8 in the litter. Here is a few pics of her at various ages up to now. Timing of this litter was perfect as I finished my Town tax duties as Treasurer followed by lambing.

Clun Forest AI Results

Success! Indeed 11 of 12 ewes bred artificially with the Netherlands frozen semen lambed from March 21-25. We had a few struggles with 3 sets of TBV triplets born on one day and a couple losses in the following days (small lambs) plus one cervical spine deformity in one of them but she is thriving now.
We have more SAN lambs: 3 twin born rams plus 1 single born black fleeced wether and 4 ewes.
Our first TBV lambs: 5 twin or triplet born rams and 3 ewes.
Our first OWE lamb: a twin born ram but the other got hung up at the ribs in a backwards birth and he didn't make it.
Overall, 15 lambs at this point could be registerable. The pic is of one the SAN twin ram lambs and his dam.

Lambs are here! Read my lambing report.

We've been lambing the last 2 weeks and actually have a little break until this next week when the ewes bred by AI to imported semen are due. It does look like 11 of 12 ewes got bred by AI so hoping for a good crop of lambs.

Lambing started out probably the best ever with 16 ewes delivering all twins. We have had about 64 lambs born to date from purebred Cluns to Clun Mules to 1/2 Br. Suffolk sired market lambs. The 3 tier system is truly working!
Here are some totals to date on the 2nd and 3rd tiers:
12 Suffolk sired lambs from 7 Mule ewes-all surviving, one assist with a leg back.
19 Clun Mule lambs from 10 Clun ewes-all surviving and more ewes than rams this year!!
Still have a couple ewes due carrying Mule lambs and a couple other cross-bred lambs.

And, of course we have Clun Forest lambs. The crop to date is from 2 new flock sires.
Twin Creek U12 produced 15 lambs to date from 8 ewes and Prairie U51 has produced 15 lambs from 11 ewes (more singles from first time lambing ewes/older ewes). Out of these 2 rams only 8 ram lambs have been kept intact as potential breeding rams and I plan to keep a son sired by U12 and have 5 to choose from. I only have 1 ewe each bred to these guys left to lamb.

I am crossing my fingers for a good selection of AI sired lambs (the ewes look good!)and if it happens I'll have some difficult choices to make later this year. Will report sometime after this week and hope to have good news and pics. The ewes will not look too pretty in the next couple of months but I will have to remember what a good lambing year they have given me to date. I don't think too many will be candidates for the upcoming NACFA photo contest but after-all they are doing what they were bred to do and if I am lucky maybe some will have some decent topknots left to show-off in a photo or two with lambs by their sides on green grass.

Profiles on the 2010 Clun Forest Cleanup Rams

Last fall's cleanup rams did not have much work which is a good thing but didn't want to leave them out as they did contribute.
Prairie FAF R7 was used for cleanup breeding for all the ewes except the ewes bred by artificial insemination. He is pictured on the far left and his sire is center. He is my only remaining son produced by AI from semen from FAF 025(Guifron flock), another Netherlands import sire. His dam goes back to one of my original ewe lines, way back to KLT Natasha ROM.
Ram FAF 00025 Owner: Scholtes, Breeder: Tom Francis, UK
His pedigree has PenY Wern, Guifron, and Woodhouse bloodlines. This ram’s grandsire FAF N9 is also the sire of Williams Beater S334 who was a previous Elite Genetics import ram. FAF 00025 was imported into the Netherlands in 2000 and was considered a top ram both production and show-wise. He also had good character and temperment, and was a consistent producer.

Prairie T102 "Devon" was the selected one for cleanup breeding 2 weeks post-AI. I figured I'd still get some quality lambs if the AI didn't take. Based on him using a marking harness I have high hopes that 11 ewes were successfully bred by the AI. Only one ewe, R360 ROM, was bred by Devon! You'll see Devon in next year's lineup for sure. Devon deserves his own feature page at some point so that is all on him for now. His is pictured on the right.

Feature on the Netherlands Sires used for 2010 AI

These rams are all part the of 2004 Clun Forest semen import from the Netherlands. The Netherlands rams are from Maedi-Visna certified flocks, are scrapie genotype ARR/ARR, and all are twin born. Gerard Scholtes of the Damburgh flock in the Netherlands worked with us on the selection and coordinated the import on that end and I handled the import details on the U.S. side. I worked on the selection with 3 other breeders and we selected the four rams who could best contribute to the North American gene pool based on pedigree, birth type, prolificacy index, production data, and show results.

SAN 125 is a REPEAT ram for our flock and was used successfully here in 2004 and 2005. Five ewes were bred to him this time around including his ROM daughter (Prairie R1), 2 grand-daughters, and 2 unrelated ewes.
Ram SAN 125 Owner: Budding, Breeder: van der Schaaf
His pedigree is heavy with Laidlaw and Babraham blood on the sire side. This ram was bred by Mr. Van der Schaaf who retired for health reasons but had a highly regarded flock. Gerard Scholtes believed this ram would make a good contribution to our gene pool. SAN 125 was the champion yearling ram at the 2003 National Show.

Six ewes were planned and bred to ram TBV 071 including 3 ROM ewes.
Ram TBV 071 Owner: Hameeteman, Breeder: van der Toorn
His pedigree goes back to Laidlaw and Babraham breeding on both sides. His sire, SBN 131, won many prizes in their shows. The breeder considers this ram’s dam his best performing ewe. Gerard selected this ram because it was a good ram with excellent parents and when Gerard took part in the annual inspection he was quite impressed with TBV 071’s offspring.


One lone ewe was bred to OWE 227 by AI this past fall. He was not planned to be bred to this year but his number and straw came up and was thawed so it was used. One good ram lamb "Prairie Loner"--twin born by request!
Ram OWE 227 Owner: Steenbeck, Breeder: Ogink
His pedigree also goes back to Laidlaw and Babraham breeding on the sire side and Babraham breeding on the dam’s side. His sire, SN 052, was champion ram in several shows in 1998 and 1999. Gerard selected this ram because he produced some nice lambs and based on his sire’s performance.

Profile on Clun Forest Ram Twin Creek U012

This Clun Forest ram was obtained from Twin Creek Farm late last June and passed his health testing and was happy to meet his group of Clun ewes for breeding this past October. Twin Creek U012 is known as Hal and I was interested in obtaining him for a few reasons. On his sire's side he goes back to some Cluns from my flock as Pat obtained her first sheep and Cluns from me. Hal's grandsire (sire side) is Prairie K136"Clyde" who was a squarely built fellow and Hal follows that build. Hals' grand-dam (sire side) is Prairie Honeysuckle who I sold as a yearling ewe and she became (ROM) Registry of Merit for Pat and I have none of Honeysuckle's dam's lines left in my current flock! Hal's dam has breeding from the Red Rock flock going back to Highmeadow breeding and I wanted the opportunity to breed Hal to a group of older ewes I have that also have Highmeadow breeding. Goal is to get some younger animals back in the flock without the newer import lines! Hals's one drawback is he also has a square head (But with a Handsome, Dark & Clean Face) that seems to find it's way between the cattle panel round bale feeder and I have had to cut him free a few times!! He also has a nice square muzzle which is a good feature for grazing animals, and he gives me ram breeding options to work with if the import lines tend too become narrow muzzled. Thank you, Pat for giving me an opportunity to bring Hal back to some of his roots! Looking forward to seeing his lambs.