New Friends from New Zealand
The day after Valentine’s Day, my fiancé, Jared, and I took an oh so romantic trip down to southern Ohio to pick up another new ram! He comes from Rodney Tornes’s “Dutch Acres” farm near Lowell Ohio, up a very sketchy gravel road, I might add! It didn’t help that there was a misty rain coming down and it was an unseasonably warm day after months of snow and ice. But when we finally arrived to the farm, we had a lovely tour of the sheep operation from the Tornes family.
The Dutch Acres barn layout is very similar to our ideal system when Jared and I finally buy a property. They house their flock of approximately 125 ewes in one big barn but four separate pens and they have a little lambing pen area off to the side for the fresh babies. Both of our farms feed into the livestock auction system in Ohio, though Dutch Acres, being much further south, splits their consignments between Mount Hope (where we send our lambs) and an auction closer to Columbus OH. Rodney made the comment, and I very much agree, “It is always nice to pick the brain of another sheep person.”
Now what about that ram? Why get a Perendale?
Let’s start with “What is a Perendale”? I will defer to the North American Perendale Association website for more in depth information, but at their core, this breed of sheep is a meat and wool animal originally developed and still popular in New Zealand. They are a medium sized sheep praised for their maternal instinct, ease of lambing, and high fertility. In terms of “Why get a Perendale” there are a few reasons I was interested in adding this breed to my flock. The qualities that they are known for are all good things that I try to select for in my flock. Plus, this specific ram, who we have lovingly named Jasper, has a lot of New Zealand genetics in his background and the entire country of New Zealand is renowned for producing very even, consistent meat AND fiber from their sheep. I was rather annoyed to have to “pull” several lambs this year from my pregnant ewes and assistance is always hard on the mother ewes, so anything I can breed in to reduce intervention, I am willing to try. Some ancillary reasons to be interested in Perendales for my flock are their black feet, which are more resistant to hoof rot, and for their fiber quality. The wool market in the US is still firmly collapsed, but I do spin yarn myself and it is a joy to work with high quality fiber from my own sheep.
Conversely to how I have historically run my farm, with primarily one breed of sheep across the whole flock, there were almost a dozen breeds and numerous crosses loafing around in the Dutch Acres barn. I didn’t ask the question directly, but it seems like Rodney’s philosophy when acquiring sheep is to focus on individual traits rather than one specific breed. If I was interested in adding “depth of body” to my flock, I would first look to find a PolyPay ram (the breed of sheep I primarily have) that showed that trait. Then, as his lambs started to hit the ground, I would select we lambs that showed that trait to keep in my flock as replacements. And as a final, more drastic step, when looking at adult ewes to “Cull” or sell to another farm, I would choose ewes with a shallow depth of body to move out first. Long story short, my past mindset was to work within my specific breed to select the traits I wanted.
But at the end of the day, no one at the auction knows what breed of sheep I have. They are only judging the weight and body confirmation of the lambs as they run through the ring. Already, I have purchased a Wensleydale Ram to start using on my ewes, so when I came across an offer from Rodeny to look at a Perendale Ram, I didn’t shy away like I might have in the past. And now, after seeing the Dutch Acres flock and talking with Rodney, I am finding my view of my flock breeds to be changing. Really, the only thing that will get harder for me is telling people what breeds of sheep I have. But even now no one knows what a PolyPay is anyway! haha