Elvis!

We've been concerned for a while now about the lack of ... ahem ... male presence with our sheep. We have McLovin out there with the group, but he is young, small, and really just not what we are looking for in a ram. 

Recently we heard that a local person I know through my dog training club had a nice Royal White ram that was already out on loan to another farm. After much back and forth between the three parties, we arranged to borrow both the ram and a trailer to move him to our farm this weekend. 

We we went to pick up the trailer we were informed that it had a special feature - a switch that you could flip to play the theme to Sanford and Son as you drive down the road. Needless to say, once we got this thing hooked up, we stayed on back roads and far away from the highway.

So this is our new loaner ram. We are pretty sure that he's not totally a Royal White since every description can find about the breed lists them as being all white and polled. Clearly, he is not all white and has horns. That said, he is a rather handsome dude. Big Onion has decided he looks like an Elvis.

Our only concern it that one of his horns seems to be growing into the side of his face. Ouch! The Big Onion and I have already agreed not to keep any of his offspring that have this kind of horns. The last thing we want is a flock of sheep that need constant horn management. Cutting horns it not fun or pretty.

Introductions to the flock were surprisingly smooth. All the girls were very curious about the newest stud on the block.

 Nina and Patch even flirted with him a bit while McLovin showed him a lot of respect and kept his distance.

It wasn't long before he started to work checking out the business end of all the girls. Here, Pepper was holding perfectly still for him: a very good sign. We haven't yet seem him do the deed, but he is a proven stud and we are pretty confident that he can get the job done as long as the girls will cycle again this late in the year.

Then Josie came stomping over, hackles up ready to show this newcomer who was in charge in this pasture. After about 3 seconds of sniffing,  Elvis reared back and gave Josie a good wholloping headbutt.

Josie back off and stormed away while the rest of the barnyard cheered. The Evil One finally got a taste of her own medicine!

We'll have more updates on our sheep breeding efforts as they move along. We've also got some important news to share ... stay tuned!