Sunny Brook Farm Suffolks
The Suffolks started in the summer of 2008 when Kim who had always wanted sheep, just finally asked our uncle(who kindly lets all the farm animals stay on his farm) what he thought of sheep. He basically said he liked them, and that he had heard there was good money in them raising them commercially. Well, Kim started looking things up and sure enough their is a market for lamb meat, and, our uncle said yes.
Basically, we started with Shetland sheep not knowing what we were getting into. Don't get me wrong, Shetlands are beautiful, but they were not for us. They were too flighty and could get out of any fence!
So we started looking, we went to the local fairs, and breeders on the Island. We fell in love with Suffolks and Corriedales. We actually found some high percentage corriedales on the Island, but, they were wild and our start in sheep wasn't going to be spent with rangy tangs! We purchased 2 Suffolk twin ewes in September of 2008 from Sally Forseth in Victoria BC. Feta and Fondue have had nothing but rave reviews from everyone that has come to the farm. They are beautiful ewes with gorgeous confirmation and fleece! We sold our 8 shetlands we had purchased end of October/early November and purchased our first Suffolk ram. "Romeo" a gorgeous Suffolk ram with wonderful bone and in my opinion(for the look I like since I'm not showing) a great topline. I would just like to see a shorter head. Geesh, I'm criticizing him like a rabbit now, LOL!
Anyway, we then wanted to buy a few more Suffolks so we contacted Ceriden livestock on Saltspring Island, where we purchased 4 bred ewes. Bonny, Blyth, Andi, and Vee all came on January 10th after a long wait! Bonny had twin lambs first, with one ram and one ewe. Then went Vee with a single ram lamb "Eeyore", then Andi with a single ram lamb, and then Blyth with twins one ewe and one ram. We likely will keep both ewe lambs(as long as they have the confirmation, right now they are still baby cute) to build our breeding program. Feta and Fondue are bred and due end of April and early June. We plan to rebreed all the girls this year to Romeo, and then next year use an outside ram.
We are focusing on raising healthy, strong boned, suffolks. Because we are not showing, we want to raise the shorter and stockier suffolks rather then the tall and lanky. I prefer the look of the shorter!
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