Sad boys

Sunday was the day to remove the 3 yearling rams from there breeding groups and put all the ewes together, we left Silver my oldest Ram in with them, hopefully he will find anyone who has not been bred by the other rams. The 3 boys are now living in the barn, as we need to keep them in a smallish pen till they decide to become friends, which can take anything from 3 or 4 days to a couple of weeks. The photo left to right is Yorkie who we bought in July, Harry and Bro.

We left Borace with has ewe lambs, he looks to be doing a good job.

We are able to tell if a ram has bred with a ewe as we put harnesses on the rams that hold a colored block, this block sits between his front legs(which you can see in the photo of Borace) and when he mount the ewe to breed the color block leaves a mark. This method has been very successful in the past and the marker washes out of the fleece. There are other methods of marking, but they can be very messy and we have heard the some of the marker's don't wash out very well, that is ok if the fleece is going to the wool co op, but our fleeces are precious and we need them in good conditions to make our yarn.
 Silver and all the ewes, should be eating breakfast, but instead they are being nosy watching what I am doing, which is tiring to take a good pic of them.