We moved our ewes and lambs to a small field with good shelter and the mild weather we are having now is giving them a great start. As you can see by the picture they are very content. We are still feeding the ewes silage and meal to keep them in good condition and to keep the milk coming. We will start to creep feed the lambs in the next few weeks. We sold our last pedigree hogget last week to a new member in Rousky but we have 2 very nice ewe lambs that were born in september that are for sale.   

Our ewe Gloria (originally from the Stonecroft flock in wicklow) had two huge ram lambs today with a little help at the end as they were so big. We have had 3 ewes lamb now and they have had 7 very healthy lambs between them.                                                                    

On wednesday morning we awoke to find that penny had lambed(2 ram lambs and 1 ewe lamb) and all were well. As you can see by the picture Sharon gives them an early boost by tube feeding them with some colostrum. We tend to do this with most triplets and any weak lambs that are born as you are then assured that they are of to a good start. The ewe has plenty of milk and will be a very good mother. We sprayed their navels with iodine (stops infection) and gave them a squirt of kick start(full of all the vitamins they need). She has lambed a few days early for the 2012 showing season but the main thing is that all are well.    

We would like to wish all the jacob members and anyone who has visited our site a  merry christmas and a happy new year. We have had a very good year showing our jacobs and we look forward to next year and meeting many new members. Balmoral,Omagh,Clogher, Enniskillen and Gosford will all have individual Jacob classes this year and i will keep you informed of any other shows that are organised  Our sheep have just been brought in now as they are very close to lambing and we are hopeful that all goes well. We have only a few due now and the rest our due the last week in January. Thankfully the weather has not been to bad and it looks like it will be a pretty mild week. They have all been Heptavaced and fluke dosed recently as they are near lambing.

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We scanned our sheep today and all went very well with only two showing up empty but we expected that as they both lambed in january this year and lambed again in august so we have done well out of them this year. All sheep were scanned with doubles and we will be due some beginning january and the rest at the end of january. The scanning is very beneficial as it tells you how many lambs to expect and how much feed to give the ewes according to whether or not they are having singles, doubles or triples.  Sponging the sheep works well as you can lamb the sheep in a short period of time and it is usually very accurate. We are hopeful that we will have another good year of lambing and few losses   

There will be individual jacob classes at balmoral show in May 2012. There will be a ewe class, ram class, ewe lamb and ram lamb class. I hope that as many jacob breeders will attend this show as this is a big achievement for our breed to have our own classes. It should be a very enjoyable day. If anyone needs an entry form please contact me.   

On Saturday we travelled to Gosford in Armagh and our son Alex had a very succesful day. He won overall champion Jacob with his pedigree ewe lamb Izzy and then went on to win the cup for the Young Handlers competition. There were over 45 Jacob sheep in the show section and we were very pleased to come home with the new trophy presented by Ross and Evelyn Mowbray for champion Jacob. The sale at Gosford was very good with the ewes and ewe lambs making great money but there was a large entry of  pedigree ram lambs so the prices were average. The top priced Jacob on the day was a shearling 2 horn ram sold by Joe mulholland for £280.  The showing season is over now in the North for the Jacobs but we will have a full line up for next year again. We had a few suprise early lambings last month and we will have new lambs born again in January so there will hopefully be plenty more ewe lambs for sale.

Enniskillen show proved another very successful day for the Kingarrow flock with our ram(Jake) securing champion and our ewe(Rebecca) reserve champion. We have just returned from england with a new ram and 4 shearling ewes to improve our flock. We will be selling  pedigree ewe and ram lambs at gosford(3rd sep) along with our prize winning ram jake. If you have any interest in jacobs we hope to see you there.  

On wednesday we travelled to Clogher show and we had another very good day out and we were very pleased that our ewe rebecca received the champion award and the dorothy pendry cup. The weather was fantastic in the morning for showing and i think everyone in the jacob ring had a good day. Well done to Peter lynch and jimmy mcgrath for winning 4 of the classes between them with some great sheep on display. Enniskillen(3rd aug) is next wednesday and we are hopeful of some success again. Gosford show(3rd sep) is holding individual jacob classes as well and should be a great show and sale for anyone interested in buying jacob sheep.