The Day family started raising sheep by purchasing two bred Columbia ewes in 1988 had our first lambs in the spring of 1989. When the family moved to its present location on Creek Road in Noblesville, Indiana in 1991, the Columbians were sold and replaced with 10 bred polled Dorset ewes, primarily to provide lambs for the children to show in 4-H.
While our daughter, Anna, had no problem with raising lambs primarily for meat (today she is a meat science professor), she also wanted to learn to spin so Romneys came to our farm in 1993 when we purchased Bob the Ram from Viki and Terry Clark in Michigan. We bred Bob to two ewes we obtained from Ray Gavin at Fiberfest that fall and had our first Romney lambs in 1994. That spring we added a few ewes from Sally Young’s flock in Pennsylvania.
We so enjoyed the Romneys that we began to add to the flock from the flocks of Lynn Barnes and Jack Kalina in Oregon. Over the years we added ewes from the Bullocks, Spring Hill Farm, The Pines Farm and Springfield Farms including our first natural colored ewes. Over time, we retained our ewe lambs and built to a flock of 25-30 breeding ewes.
After considerable thought, we dispersed the Romneys in 2009 to go to a breed that would lamb in a little earlier in the year. We dabbled with the Corriedales produced by Geoff Ruppert (and their incredible fleeces) but could not accumulate enough ewe base to our liking to stay with them. In 2012, we started with Lincolns, prizing their quality fleeces and sound carcasses. Their earlier lambing dates also better fit our work schedules and better serve our 4-H market.