Three Ewes

In December of 2023, we had been living on our small homestead for 3 years. We had finally figured out chickens, and our garden had been increasing in size each year, so we decided to try our hand at livestock. We were shopping local and didn't have a very large selection available to us. I knew I wanted to get Navajo Churros because they were listed as "critical" on the Livestock Conservancy Priority list. I also liked that they are considered a tri-purpose breed because they can be used for wool, meat, and milk. I was mainly interested in their milk because I had read that sheep milk made delicious cheese. We visited a local farm and decided on these three ewes. We weren't yet ready to take them home, and we wanted them to be pregnant so we agreed that they would be delivered on January 30th, 2024. In the mean time, they would be moved to a pen with multiple rams.

I had read about what I should be looking for, but to be honest, the sheep were so overgrown with wool that it was impossible to tell much. Also, if we made any attempt to go near them, the entire herd just started running. So I picked Pippi because she had such a pretty badger pattern on her face. Then I just had the farmer pick me two more from the few that they were selling. At the time, I suspected that I was probably not going to have much luck milking them, but we bought them anyway. We really had no details about them at all but the white ewe had an ear tag that said that she was born in April of 2019 so she was already almost 5 years old. Her ear tag also said that her name was "Tippy" but that sounded too much like Pippi, so I decided to call her Cotton because she was all white, and I thought it was kind of funny. The largest ewe had a brown face, so I decided to call her Brownie because apparently I am not very original.

Once delivered, the three ewes clustered together and tried to stay as far away from us as possible. Eventually they started to calm down when we came into the pen and no longer tried to run to the farthest corners to get away from us. After much sitting in the pen, Pippi finally started to come over to me to eat grain out of my hand. After watching Pippi reap the spoils of her bravery, Brownie started coming over as well. Cotton, however, continued to stay as far away as possible and never did eat out of my hand.