Our friendly flock of sheep is visible from three guest rooms, the dining room and the lounge. We have crossbred Suffolks and purebred Scottish Blackface sheep.
Brambleberry Farms: Highland cows
Our purebred Scottish Highland cows eat hay bales during the winter.
Our sheep grazing in the pasture during the fall. All of the sheep with the exception of Shamrock are named after Jane Austen characters.
Brambleberry's Scottish Blackface
The cloud-like, lightweight fleece of the Scottish Blackface is known for being used in Harris tweed clothing.
Shamrock (sitting on her mother Jane's back) was born on St. Patrick's Day 2009 about 5 a.m. She's the first lamb born at Brambleberry and decided a feed dish was a comfortable spot to rest.
Bingley is Lizzy's ram lamb.
Fanny, a ewe lamb, and her mother kitty.

Lucy is one of the Blackface ewes.

 

Our first lambing season

(This is a copy of a column that Chris wrote for the La Crosse Tribune, capturing our first lambing season at Brambleberry).

Lambing season has made me feel like a new parent again even though it’s been 21 years since our youngest child was born. If only I were still 24 years old.
The seeds of our venture into shepherding were sown 10 years ago when my wife Sherry and I took a three-week trip to England. We rented a cottage in a small village where we awoke to the  sounds of baaing sheep drifting through our windows.
I didn't think the sounds of hungry ovines would leave such a long-lasting impact. But since we moved back to the family farm three years ago and opened a bed and breakfast, Sherry wanted to complete our English-Scottish theme with the ambiance of bleating sheep.
History tells us sheep were domesticated some 10,000 years ago. It was the result of Sherry's long-term domestication attempt with yours truly that I conceded to starting a flock. We both grew up on dairy farms but our knowledge of sheep was limited. Then again, we knew nothing about pigs and have successfully raised those for three years.
Last fall we bought four crossbred ewes from a local Amish farmer. Sherry named them Jane, Kitty, Lizzy and Mary after the Bennet sisters in "Pride and Prejudice," which is Sherry's all-time favorite miniseries (the BBC version, not the watered-down Keira Knightley movie). We added a ram named Black from another sheep farm.
Ewes are seasonal breeders. Their fertile period is in the fall.  A classic ram response to estrus is to lift his nose in the air and curl his upper lip, which is akin to my facial expression when Sherry tells me that supper is ready.
A mature ram can easily mate 100 ewes. Black may not be Hugh Hefner, but he did his job. The girls became quite large with their fluffy wool and expanding bellies. All the ewes with the exception of Jane are first-time mothers.
The first to arrive was Shamrock, born on St. Patrick's Day to Jane. Fanny, another ewe lamb, born to Kitty, arrived about 1 a.m. Thursday and had to be tube fed. We suspected Fanny was going to be a bottle baby, but mother and daughter are doing fine.
About 5 a.m. Thursday came Lydia and Wickham, coal black twins, born to Mary, who was busy licking the ewe lamb when out popped a ram. We hastily prepared some pens to keep the mothers and lambs confined. I left a garbled, sleep-deprived message on the publisher's voice mail saying I would be a few minutes late for work because I was experiencing labor pains or something like that.
Finally, on Friday night, Lizzy gave birth to Bingley, a ram who is the spitting image of his father and our flock doubled in size in only a few days. Shamrock already is bouncing around the pen  demonstrating her stotting technique, the term used to describe the four-legged vertical leap that lambs love. I’m already thinking about a “Lamb Cam” to stream video of our leaping lambs on the Internet.
All this overnight activity has left me somewhat weary. I hope to catch up on some rest very soon.
 If you don’t mind, I’ll pass on counting sheep. Don’t think I’ll need it.

 

 

The animals of Brambleberry

Brambleberry B&B is part of a large, working farm. We have a small menagerie of farm animals. Some of them, like the pigs and chickens, help provide fresh, natural food for our breakfast table. We believe in a sustainable lifestyle and raise our animals in humane conditions.

One of our favorite experiences in England was seeing the many flocks of sheep grazing on pastoral, green hillsides, watching the lambs frolic and hearing the soothing sounds of sheep bleating. We raise Suffolk and purebred registered Scottish Blackface sheep. The Scottish Blackface is the premier hill sheep of the Scottish Lowlands and has been in existence since the 1200s. Each year we offer raw fleeces and breeding stock for sale. In fall we have grass-fed slaughter lambs for sale.

We also have started a Scottish Highland cattle herd. These beautiful and rugged cows are known for their prominent horns and shaggy coats. They are also very self-sufficient cattle because they can survive on less than ideal pasture. The meat is very lean and healthy. The animals are grass fed and take longer to mature than other breeds.

Our group of hens provide us with eggs much of the year and the breeds include Speckled Sussex and Buff Orpingtons, both English breeds.

Every year we get a new group of pigs, who have distinct personalities and are very social animals. Our pigs enjoy a mud bath on hot summer days as pigs have no sweat glands and wallow to keep cool.

There also is a variety of beef cattle on the farm, owned by another family member.

We offer a farm tour after breakfast for guests who are interested.

Nessie (left) is our 2-year-old golden lab. She lives in our private quarters but you may see her outside. Lucky is an outside dog who will probably greet you when you arrive.

Different breeds of chickens provide our guests with fresh eggs.

 
 
Every year we raise a small group of pigs.

Twin lambs Lydia and Wickham with their mother Mary.
A newly-shorn Lizzy. The sheep were sheared by a local Amish farmer in April.

Beef cattle which belong to other family members graze the hillside pastures.