Fall Shearing of the Icelandic Sheep

Icelandic fleeces come in a wide variety of colors and are prized by hand spinners. The 17 colors and patterns these beautiful animals come in include black, silvery black, blue to lavender greys, silvery grey, whites, tans, beige, champagne, moorit (the brown variations), including deep dark mahogany reds, rusty browns, strawberry blondes. The actual color genetics are a bit more complicated, but but these words give you an idea of what to expect from the Icelandic sheep breed. 

There are many wonder qualities of the Icelandic breed, but the colors and patterns are one of our favorite aspects of these natural colored sheep.

The Icelandic fleece is dual coated, with a fine, soft undercoat called thel and a longer, coarser outer coat called tog. Staple lengths on these fleeces regularly exceed 10".

We love shearing time, both in the spring and fall, when we get to see how the animals are doing. In the spring, we see how they have fared through the winter and during gestation, lambing and lactation and in the fall we evaluate how they have done through the summer on pasture. 

This year, with the introduction of a more sophisticated mineral supplementation program, the flock is looking really great.

How to Wean Piglets on Pasture

Weaning piglets is no small task, especially when you have them in field and forest the way we do! It's definitely a  two person job when you are in the field with no barn in sight. We wean our piglets at 8 weeks of age...they get the benefit of lots of mother's milk and their condition and size at 8 weeks really shows.

1. First, you want 'em nice and hungry, so manage the feed so that they will be hungry at move time and follow you anywhere you go!
2. Pick a location to move your sows to, about 300 feet from where your piglets will be and lay in your paddock.
3. Corral them all into a smaller area behind some hog panels.
4. Peel out the mama's using a small, walking cage with all sides covered except for the front.
5. Put some food down for the piglets to distract them... they will already be crying to go with their mamas.
6. Walk those sows as fast as you can to their new spot and feed them right quick.
7. Keep the piglets in their familiar spot where they can still have the scent of mama and the comfort of bedding they know.
8. String the electric fence on the inside of the hog paneled corral so they don't forget about getting zapped and will still respect the fence.
9. They'll need to be here about a week.

After about a week, you should be able to move them back into a large paddock, still keeping some distance between them and the mamas. You will notice that the little critters will become suddenly even more ravenous as they are withdrawing from mother's milk. They may whine a bit; our Tamworth pigs are known to be rowdier and more talkative than some pigs! But they'll have each other and you'll see them happily pig piling and rooting around in no time.

Hungry Piglets

Note hog panels, electric fence and visual barrier

Moving cage

This is what our moving cage looks like, only here it doesn't have the visual barrier. It's fashioned in a horse-shoe shape with a straight sided opening. This can easily be placed down over the pigs. If there is separating of pigs required, we first corral them into a smaller paddock, then using a piece of ply wood, we push and direct the hogs we want to move into the cage. Two people can just lift it slightly and walk along to move the pigs...

If you follow these steps, you can successfully keep all the participants happy with out pigs escaping and running wild! The key is to have them out of sight, sound and smell. Remember, in farming there is no timeline...just one step after the other, and lots of patience.

Tamworth Feeder Pigs Off to New Home at Intervale

These two vigorous piglets are heading off to a farm at Burlington's Intervale to be raised by a young farmer. We named this year's pigs after the characters from The Matrix. These two critters are Maggie & Morpheus!

The Tamworth pig is particularly well suited for Vermont as they are hardy and adaptable. They are one of the oldest breeds and are prized as "the bacon pig" for their ability to put on large mass without a lot of fat.

These little piggies are 7 weeks old.

Maggie & Morpheus

Documentary on Icelandic Leader Sheep

Watch these interesting videos on the history of Icelandic and Icelandic leader sheep, a genetic trait unique to the Icelandics...

Part 1



Part 2

 

directed by Guðný Halldórsdóttir, edited by Stefanía Thors
 

Gorgeous Ewe Lambs Head Off to New Home

Two more beautiful ewe lambs head off to a new home. This moorit badger face ewe lamb is from one of our best lines. The spotted black grey comes from our new ram and out of an excellent ewe who birthed both her lambs unassisted as a first time mom. Both animals are in excellent condition and make a fine addition to the farm they are headed off to.

Icelandic Ewes Sold to NH Farm

These beautiful ladies are off to their new home at a wonderful farm in New Hampshire. This farmer made some excellent choices. These are two proven ewes with their ewe lambs. The mouflon ewe lamb and the black-grey ewe lamb will both carry the moorit gene. The mouflon from her sire Ursus, and the black-grey from her Dam. Lots of color and pattern possibilities no matter who these girls are paired with. All have some great AI genetics and friendly dispositions too!

We still have many beautiful ewe and ram lambs for sale. Contact us for more information. 802-434-3953.

Tamworth Sows and Piglets Move to Pasture

We moved the sows and their little piglets from their farrowing pen to pasture. It's not easy moving pigs. They're big, they're slow, their piglets are milling about like mice and, with all the rain we've been having, they want to stop every time we hit a wet spot and wallow!

Brixia went first with her three piglets plus the two from Orange that adopted her (we figure it's cause there was no line at the teats!) We finally got her moved the 1/4 mile walk with lots of coaxing, pushing and maneuvering.

That included moving her across a deep fast moving stream...several piglets fell in but we scooped them right back out.

Next it was Orange's turn. She turned out to be a lot easier as she is generally an active, curious and high energy pig.

We use a small cage built from a welded wire hog panel, with a covering on three sides so that they can only see though the wire in a forward direction. This allows them to see forward as they walk without getting distracted by what's behind them. The piglets were mainly pushed and rolled along.

Here are the happy pigs finally on pasture where they will rotate around in large meadow and woodland lots through the growing season. Here they are in a paddock designed to train the little ones to the electric fence.

Tamworth pigs on pasture!