The
Kristie Sheep Farm flock started over 30 years ago with the purchase of bummer lambs from the historic Haycreek Ranch in Central Oregon. After a short time we moved on to a few crossbred ewes and started raising our own lambs. This was in the late 1970's. It wasn't long before I moved on to 4-H and then FFA. It was the move into 4-H that spurred my family to purchase our first registered sheep.
I fell in love with the beautiful black points of the Suffolk breed and it wasn't long before my parents caved into the relentless lobbying from their almost teenage daughter. With that we became the proud owners of a few fine Suffok ewes. By the end of high school and my FFA career we raised a number of lambs every year.
It wasn't until about 1988 when we purchased our first Montadale ewe lamb. She was white. I can remember the day vividly. Our family was at a purebred sheep sale and it was a cold fall day. We were still actively raising Suffolk sheep at the time, but we had taken notice of the success of the Montadale/Suffolk cross market lambs recently introduced into our area. It was becoming more apparent to us, if we wanted to keep up with selling competitive market lambs then we might want to start crossbreeding. As fate would have it, R & G Montadales, one of the premier Montadale flocks in the nation at the time was selling three ewe lambs. Luckily we ended up winning the bid on what would become our first Montadale ewe. We brought Jody home and turned her out with our blackface ewes, where she promptly spent three days following them around as the blackface ewes were a bit slow to pickup on the desegregation movement happening around our house.
It turned out the Montadales fit perfectly with our flock. I was away at Oregon State University for a few years and my parents enjoyed working with the breed. During that time we started to focus on the Montadales and kept a few blackface ewes around for crossbreeding. Mom and Dad invested in a few ewes from the national show and sale and then also a few nice rams. By the time I returned home in 1996, the flock had developed into a competitive show flock. It was at this time we started showing regularly at the Oregon State Fair and a number of county fairs.
By the mid-1990's we started turning our blackface ewes into a flock of market lamb mamas in order to produce project lambs for 4-H & FFA members. We worked hard to create a very complete set of locally competitive wether sire/dam sheep. We chose to liquidate the club lamb flock in the fall of 2008 selling them to a good friend and his children from the Willamette Valley.
Another change that came about in 2000 was the birth of our first black Montadale. A surprise to all of us we decided to keep the ewe lamb and we named her Lucky's Charm or Charmer for short. Little did we know at the time that she would change our outlook on the sheep industry and have such a profound affect on the type of sheep we would be raising a few years later. To our surprise, this beautiful ewe pictured at the top of blog went on to place extremely well at the Natural Colored Wool Growers Association National Show held at the Oregon State Fair in 2001.
In the meantime, I had literally snuck a black ram lamb in the trailer following 2000 Oregon State Fair. We named him Blackie and together, Balckie and Charmer would become the foundation of our natural colored flock.
Although we lost Charmer about a year ago and sold Blackie to a new family, we have many of their descendants. We have enjoyed getting involved in the fiber and hand-spinning industry enough to add on a few new breeds. We were able to purchase a dispersal of wonderful black ewes based with a lot of elite Columbia genetics. Within the last year we have also added a few high quality Romadale ewes as well as a small flock of Lincolns with Dodds and Reister genetics.
As we have now expanded the Kristie Flock into a true hand spinners flock we will be proud to provide a variety of fleece grades to our fiber customers in 2009. We will also continue to offer a select number of high quality locker lambs each year as well as some wonderful breeding stock.
When I was little I always wanted a black sheep, with that said, I never dreamed there would be a day the black sheep outnumbered the white sheep, which is the scenario today.
Stay tuned for weekly updates. February will be full of lambing details, the introduction of our new flock members, and possibly shearing if the weather holds. As we move into Spring, I would like to focus on fleece sales and highlight some of the special projects our fiber enthusiasts undertake throughout the year. By summer we will be into show season and of course post show results as well as highlight some wonderful lamb recipes for our locker lamb folks.
Keep checking back to see new baby pictures!
Sincerely,
Kris Jones & Family
