2023 Review

         2023 saw a transition of managers.  After a nationwide search,  we did find a worthy successor to Graeme.   Cameron Pedigo started mid-April and Graeme was able to take a well-deserved  complete retirement as of May 1 2023.  Well-deserved!  Click here to learn more about Cameron and his wife, Tara.

      In 2023, as described on our home page, we strove  for more  biodiversity on our sixty-one acres,  with  a new, urgent  campaign against invasive shrubs and bushes that we  had tolerated for too long beside the Sawyer Kill, planting native trees, shrubs and wildflowers in the buffer between streambank and pasture. We made rotational grazing even more intensive than before,  with back-fencing to give longer rest time.  Sales were way down, with flock size much reduced after a big year in 2022.  We sold only one purebred replacement ewe, a yearling.   No lambs went as breeding stock, letting us  hold onto our five keeper ewes from  the purposely-small number of  lambs (nine)  born in spring 2023.  In 2023,  we decided to breed for lambs born in March and April 2024 rather than Feb and March, wanting to experiment with weaning them on pasture with their dams. As of  March 27 2024  lambing maybe not be quite finished, with one or two to go.  The 2023 breeding season, with thirty-one ewes put to rams, has brought 29 or 30 of them  to term with an average litter size of 1.8.    Thes ires were an agouti-recessive natural-colored ram from Tawanda Farms; an extension dominant natural-colored ram from Pitchfork Ranch; and a white ram of our own breeding. More on the sires under the tab  Rams used in 2023.