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Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin ewe $300

Pretty solid white ewe. She is lower on growth EBVs, but makes up for it in high prolificacy, survival and milk. This is a very “maternal ewe” EBV profile that echoes throughout her pedigree. She will have lots of high-survival lambs in her lifetime and will feed them well. Diverse blend of Birch Cove (David Coplen, Missouri), Misty River Farm (Mary Bakko,  Moses Lake, now retired), Thistle Grove Farm (John Bare, Iowa) and Misty Oaks Farm (Kathy Bielek, Ohio).

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe is open and ready to be bred in the fall to lamb as a two-year-old.

Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin ewe $400, exposed

Larger-framed white ewe with “Raggedy Ann” black markings on her nose and eyes. Really strong growth and survival EBVs, but moderate on prolificacy and milk. This girl will be an uncomplicated producer of fast-growing, vigorous twins most of the time. Diverse blend of Birch Cove (David Coplen, Missouri), Misty River Farm (Mary Bakko,  Moses Lake, now retired),  On the Lamb Farm (Sara-Jo Gahm in Arlington), and White Post Farm (East Coast, now retired). Lambing record starting as a yearling: 1/1.

Photo taken Sept 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe has been exposed to a ram starting 11/8. Rams are wearing marking harnesses, so I will know her breed date.

Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin ewe with ewelamb at side $500

Mahogany ewe with long white socks, white tail and panda/baldface markings. She is a bit shaggy ? and it’s possible she won’t shed completely and will be a B coat. But this is still considered register-able, and I don’t worry about it when production metrics are good, and the ewe doesn’t require shearing or any upkeep. It’s a minor aesthetic issue for me. You’ll notice she’s got a couple of percenters way back in her pedigree, one was a 1/4 Dorper, the other had some wool breed upgrades, so that’s probably where that snarl is coming from. This girl is quite strong for growth, milk and survival, but is a little lower on NLB for those people who dislike a lotta triplets. Very good maternal stock in this pedigree. Good blend of Birch Cove (David Coplen, Missouri), Misty River Farm (Mary Bakko,  Moses Lake, now retired), Bert Martineau (old WA genetics, now retired), and KRK Katahdins in Oregon.

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe has a chocolate ewelamb at side. They can go together for $500 by the end of May.

Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin yearling ewe, $300

Tall, long, white yearling ewe. Very strong, balanced EBVs across the board. This ewe will be a good producer of both replacement ewes and grower lambs. Nice blend of genetics from Thistle Grove Farm (John Bare) in Iowa, Misty Oaks Farm (Kathy Bielek, Ohio), White Post Farm (East Coast, now retired), Just Plain Sheep (Eastern WA, now retired), KRK Katahdins in Oregon, and Bert Martineau (now retired).

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe is open, ready to go to a new home today and breed this fall!

Offered for sale as a pet/commercial ewe $250

This is a very pretty dappled chocolate ewe. She was unlucky enough to get mastitis before she even lambed as a yearling, so has struggled to raise twins ever since. She can do it if both are offered a bottle or bucket supplement, and they can continue to nurse and get some milk from her. Or one can be pulled and she can raise a single OK. She has a nice pedigree and EBVs, so still could be bred if there was ability to supplement her lambs, which is what I’ve done all three years for her. She is priced at commercial/cull price and would also make a nice pet, she is very mellow and would tame up easily. Lambing record starting as a yearling: 2/2, 2/1, 2/2

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe’s lamb is weanable so she could go to a new home any time.

Offered for sale as a purebred, registered Katahdin ram $550

A pretty snazzy, flashy chocolate roan ram with panda face markings, out of one of my newly purchased Missouri Birch Cove Farm rams. This ram’s mother, though normally a really good dam, had a mishap with her triplets this year, she couldn’t keep track of them and they were wandering all over. I was supplementing this guy in the field a little bit with the bottle to make sure he was getting enough, and he just decided he’d rather go that route, and quit trying to nurse off his dam. 🙂 I was busy, so gave up and let him be an orphan-rear. Mind you, he’s not technically a “bottle lamb” because I teach them to drink from a teat bucket right away. So though he’s acclimated to people from being in the barn, he’s not tame or friendly, so shouldn’t be a behavior problem later as an intact ram.

Dam’s pedigree has some hardy, old-school WA genetics (Bert Martineu, now retired) plus a White Post Farm ram from the East Coast (also now retired). The Birch Cove ram has a little bit of Texel a few generations back, as David has been crossing those in and upgrading back to gain benefits from hybrid vigor and the myostatin gene. I spent a lot of money and effort getting those rams shipped out West, so take advantage of my investment and use this gorgeous, high-indexing guy to improve your flock!

Photo taken May 2020.  EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ram will be ready to go to a new home in July, but can be reserved now! Don’t wait, this color is very popular and rare!

Offered for sale as a purebred, registered Katahdin ewe $300, exposed

This is a large-framed, gentle, white ewe. When Mary Bakko (Misty River Farm, Moses Lake) retired from sheep in 2016, I bought twelve of her highest-EBV ewes. They were in a very different feeding environment in Eastern WA (small acreage, irrigated pasture, super high quality hay) and most of them struggled to transition to my farm at middle age, with more walking required, grazing more marginal forage, and a different parasite load. I have found in Mary’s feeding system, she consistently got these very large frames (circa 180 lbs) whereas these same genetics don’t get as big on pasture at my farm, hovering more around a standard 150 lbs. This is one of the last ewes here from that purchase, I’ve mostly kept daughters out of those ewes to capture the genetics, but moved the original ewes on or culled them for being unthrifty. You can see in the photo how she draws down her weight quite a bit from nursing on pasture.

She’s had some maternal problems as she’s gotten older. In 2019, she aborted triplets a month early. In 2020, she was open or otherwise lost her pregnancy (sometimes I find an aborted fetus in the field, but I don’t know which ewe it belonged to). I might have sold her earlier, except that she’s a very calm ewe around guardian dogs, and she was helpful to pen with my newly purchased pup for training purposes. So she stayed here one more year! Despite her large frame, she is a very bomb-proof, calm and gentle ewe and is very easy to handle. This year, she had twins, both born very weak, and I had to do a lot of work to strengthen them. One also had a severe heart murmur, so I orphan-reared him. Her lambing record starting as a two-year-old: 2/2, 3/2 (one stillborn), 2/2, 3/0, 0/0 (?), 2/1.

I think she could do well on a small farm that has good feed, and does more hay or grain feeding, vs relying on graze most of the year. She carries pregnancy risk, but with good feeding and monitoring, she may be able to produce twins and triplets for quite a few more years. She has good EBVs, so she could produce some strong replacement daughters. I’m selling her at a cull/pet price, knowing she carries risk and needs more care. I usually get $2/lb live weight for mutton ewes, so I’ve discounted her quite a bit from that because I think she’s a nice girl who would enjoy being a pet on a small acreage again. Mary loved her ewes, and I believe this one’s name was “Nancy” back then. 🙂

Photo taken July 2021.  EBVs from 2021 lamb crop EPWWT data and includes the new Genomics run calculations (though this ewe isn’t genotyped herself). NSIP is currently not reporting the USA HAIR index, until it can be updated with the new Genomics calculations.  This ewe will be exposed starting 11/6/21, and price reflects a small bump, given that.

Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin ewe, $300 

Really flashy panda-faced chocolate roan ewelamb. This girl’s mother developed mastitis as a yearling before she even lambed, so has had a rough time raising lambs right out of the gate (this is her dam’s third lamb crop). This lamb has been half dam-raised, half orphan-reared on a teat bucket. She is pretty social from being in the barn her whole life. She has good prolificacy and moderate growth scores. Her milk score is a little lean, but that is mostly coming from her dam’s damaged score, which may not reflect her true genetics if she hadn’t had mastitis right out of the gate. Her sire has a good milk score, so this girl may be a good milker, only time will tell.

Diverse pedigree blending genetics from KRK Katahdins in Oregon, Misty River Farm in Moses Lake (now retired), Aspen Mountain Farm in Montana, and Birch Cove (David Coplen) in Missouri.

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This lamb can go to a new home today. New owner should plan on feeding her a good diet of alfalfa and/or some kind of creep grain to keep her on a good growth curve for another month or two until her rumen is fully able to take advantage of forage and grass.

Offered for sale as a purebred, registered Katahdin ewe, $425, with ram lamb at side

Standard white ewe with good growth and milk scores, but low on prolificacy. She was open last year, which happens sometimes, so that hurts her score some, but a lot of animals in her pedigree are also lower in NLB/NLW. So this girl will tend away from triplets, though they are not unheard of in her pedigree, either. Lambing record starting as a two-year old: 2/2, (open), 1/1.

Diverse pedigree blending genetics from KRK Katahdins in Oregon, Birch Cove (David Coplen) in Missouri, Just Plain Sheep in Moses Lake (now retired), Hasbrouk Farms in Shelton (with a little White Dorper thrown in there several generations back), and North Dakota State University’s research flock. This ewe will be a good producer for many more years, and is a good starter ewe for someone who would prefer to steer clear of the complexity of multi-births most of the time.

Photo taken May 2020 with her chocolate-colored ram lamb. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. She can go with her ram lamb at side for $425 before the end of May.

Offered for sale as a purebred Katahdin ewe, $400, exposed to a ram

Pretty, refined, white yearling ewe. Strong growth and prolificacy scores, a little lower on milk. This ewe has triplets galore in her pedigree as well as being a triplet herself; and most of the time the ewes in this pedigree raise them with no aid. This is a very maternal-genetics ewe who has good growth scores,to boot. Diverse pedigree blending genetics from KRK Katahdins in Oregon, Birch Cove (David Coplen) in Missouri, Aspen Mountain Katahdins in Montana, White Post Farm from the East Coast, and Thistle Grove Farm (John Bare) in Iowa.

Photo taken May 2020. EBVs from 2020 lamb crop birth data. This ewe blood-tested pregnant in late April, but she’d not bagging up yet, so I’m not 100% confident that she’s bred or when she’s due. She would have been bred by a new ram I brought in from Missouri from Birch Cove Farm.