So it’s about time to start breeding the sheep and goats again so we’ve started talking about plans for the animals. Because of the insanely harsh sun in NZ, the generally white East Freesian sheep get super sunburnt on their ears and udders. Lyndal has access to a spotted black East Freesian ram and also an entirely black one. We’ve decided to breed all of the available sheep to the entirely black one to hopefully get some lambs who have black or spotted skin with white wool. This lowers the chance of them being sunburnt and being in pain. People who have sheep for wool don’t usually want black rams or ewes because black wool isn’t worth anything but in our case of using the milk and not the wool it would be super beneficial.  As for the goats, there is a new baby buck who is ready for breeding and the teenagers we have are also ready to breed. The baby buck is being bred to two of the teens because he is small and both of them are also on the small size so he’s being used to produce smaller babies that won’t kill them. Lyndal has chosen a Sable buck to increase milk volumes in the milkers because the sable line is higher in milk production. She doesn’t want to lose all of the butterfat in the milk or she won’t get a ton of yield for the cheese she makes. Toggenburg breeds have higher butterfat so she wants to keep some of the Toggenburg in her line. Worms are a huge problem here, so improving resilience to worms is priority in breeding. Lancelot, the oldest buck we have now, and his son Gosht are both incredibly resilient to worms so breeding with them is a really good idea. Neither of them are being kept long term so it’s a good idea to use them as much as possible to get the worm resilience in before they are dispatched. Ronan, another buck Lyndal has access to, is an award winning animal in the entire country so a few of the goats are being bred with him. The key is breeding female goats with the bucks that have made superb babies to try to get the best goats possible.