[Jacob-list] (no subject)

[Susan J Martin]

You said it well, Neal.  And BTW, we missed you at the AGM.

In a recent email conversation with someone in Britain involved with Jacobs it was mentioned to me that they think our Jacobs are ugly - I had asked for an opinion on our philosophy of maintaining primitiveness and he graciously responded with frankness that I appreciated -- but as the old cliché states, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."  We are the country that fought for independence from taxation w/o representation, our early ancestors raised beef on the open range with a "survival of the fittest" mentality, our early ancestors settled this country living in unimaginably crude conditions, we generally don't like being told what to do, and as Jacob breeders we like a sheep that can take care of itself w/o all kinds of intervention.  Do we still make color, horn, fleece, etc. selections as breeders....you bet we do.  But we should always make those selections secondarily to hardiness, lambing and mothering abilities, parasite resistance, thrivability, etc.   We also are a country today that is obsessed with physical appearance to the point of being OCD......if we keep a ewe based entirely only on her good looks and forget the health issues, we are making a mistake.....which brings to mind another old cliché -  "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover."  And if we are going to view our sheep like pets, like Fluffy the family dog, then we should also make sure that our pet sheep with less than desirable health traits do not procreate......we can't spay our favorite pet ewes ( like we do Fluffy) but we certainly can make sure they aren't bred if they don't have good health characteristics.  

Oh, on a lighter note.....yesterday I picked up a 2 horned wether, using one of my husband's work vans....we need a wether to keep our ram company during the times he is separated from the ewes.  We loaded the wether, and I was chatting with the breeder, when suddenly we heard a tremendous crash -- Mr. Wether apparently didn't care for the proposed mode of travel and jumped right through the window in the rear door of the van, literally flying through the air,  spraying glass everywhere - and he promptly ran down the road!!!  We were able to corral him and he wasn't hurt, not even a scratch,  and despite his best protests, found himself stuffed into a large dog crate for his trip home -- and my husband was very understanding about the broken window!  This morning Mr. Wether is calmly grazing with Sweetgrass Cooper and they are becoming best of friends.....don't you just love those primitive jumpers!!!

Sue
Stonecroft
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