As round one of breeding gets wrapped up for the year, I realized that there's a
project we've been working on that I haven't really mentioned yet. Some of you might know TCE Glacier, who passed away this year. He was an incredible guy, and was a part of multiple breeders' flocks for many years. He threw incredible fleece, really nice udders, gentle temperaments, squared frames, great rooing... lots of awesome characteristics.
The last couple of years we've been working on trying to get some of the really awesome genetics from our polled lines into our horned lines (and vice versa). Pulling Glacier's genetics into a horned line is one of our goals, and we've made some exciting progress so far! We're breeding with a much more selective and controlled breeding group this year, so the Glacier crosses we've chosen are all really specific.
Shown below are the Glacier children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren we're breeding this year.
The horned and polled genetics are kind of hard to work with, and can be somewhat unpredictable (we've had fully horned lambs come from two polled parents, fully polled come from two horned parents, and everything in-between), so making crosses like this comes with the responsibility to cull anything that isn't top quality. We've chosen to breed a couple of sheep that have scurs as a result of a horned to polled cross, but the ONLY reason they aren't culls is because of how the rest of the cross worked out perfectly (frame, fleece, etc.).
Needless to say, we're excited for another year of these exciting crosses and to move this project one more generation forward!
Check out our website to learn more about our
https://www.peacefulvalleyfold.com/sale-barn-sheep and our breeding goals
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