Ranfurly Farm: BFL and Gotland Sheep

Yearling Rams - 2010 crop

Ranfurly Farm starting importing registered Bluefaced Leicester sheep from the USA in September of 2009. Ewes were purchased from Judy Colvin's flock in Montana (Bitterroot Ranch) and from Robina Koenig's Tumble Creek Farm flock in Oregon. Their pedigrees represent all of UK sires available in the US at that time. Titus, Titan, Blackmoor, Jamie and Carryhouse. An AI son of the Carryhouse R1, Elite plus ram came from Judy Colvin and we also used a son of Heinz Talisker purchased from Autumn Hills Woolens (Jeff and Patricia Seldomridge of Curtis Washington.) Since this initial importation, we have returned to the USA to purchase another group of 6 females from Judy Colvin (December 2010) and 2 additional groups of rams (September 2010, and June, 2011).

Our current breeding flock numbers 21 females.

Ranfurly Farm participated in the importation of BFL semen from the UK with two other Canadian BFL breeders - Jody McLean of Alberta and Janice Lever of Ontario. Three rams were selected and the semen arrived in November of 2011. 12 ewes were synchronized, and bred to Grugoer B1 and Myfyrian B10 - Blue Dragon - we have our fingers crossed for a good conception rates! The remainder of the flock was served by our new coloured BFL ram purchased from Jared Lloyd of Colorado (Jehovah-Jireh Cattle Company) "JJ".

Myfyrian B10 - Blue Dragon

Grugoer B1

In November of 2011, Ranfurly Farm imported Canada's first Gotland flock. Four Gotland ewes (AI'd to different Gotland sires) and a ram from a third line of Gotlands were purchased from Joy and Martin Dally of Lebanon Oregon and two additional ewes from Susie and Dan Wilson, SuDan Farms in Canby Oregon. We are hoping that this will provide us with a solid foundation to build a larger Gotland flock.

Gotland ewe with twins

Winston - one of the Gotland AI sires with a close up of his fleece.

We have bred our Gotland ram to our BFL Mules (North Country Cheviot X BFL ewes) which should be interesting.

Watch for more photos of sheep and fleeces coming soon.