Prairie Rose Suffolks

01/12/2025

Our 4 year old senior stud, "Western Underground", is looking quite fit this winter. This massive ram is a son of the "Mother Lode" ram, going back to the Luxford "Bozeman" stud buck and the Prairie Rose 1510 ewe on his paternal side. On his maternal side he is a grandson of the old Luxford 1377 stud (IYKYK). His dam, Prairie Rose 1671 goes back to one of our most powerful ewe lines. He sires quick firing, quality lambs at birth that grow like crazy!
We're excited to see his lambs start hitting the ground soon.

12/23/2024

Seasons Greetings!!! May your barn be filled with fiesty lambs, happy ewes and impactful stud rams! 🎄🐑🎄

11/28/2024

FROM OUR BARN TO YOURS ~

11/15/2024

Late for dinner! Here's 2 of my favorite ewes heading in for supper. As members of the "Bold and the Body-ful Club" here, they exhibit, well....lots of body, keeping ability and volume and they consistently put top end lambs on the ground for us. The ewe on the left is 4 years of age and the ewe on the right will see her 8th birthday before she lambs in February. They are about half way through gestation and have been on a maintenance ration of grass/alfalfa mixed hay and are looking quite good and doing well. As the weather gets colder and we get closer to lambing time, we'll make the necessary changes in the ration to keep the ewes on a rising plane of nutrition to help ensure healthy and vigorous lambs at birth and to enhance milk production in the mama ewes.

11/12/2024

Nutrition, Nutrition, Nutrition!!!
It pays dividends down the road...

With the milder, open fall we've been having, don't get complacent on your ewe's nutrition. There have been some great articles on flushing recently and many producers will be looking to save money on feeding ewes with the open fall by skipping supplementation on range. Weight loss after breeding and through mid pregnancy can have massive implications to the lamb crop months later with reduced milk production and lamb cold tolerance. It's really hard to body condition score ewes from the truck when they have 3 or 4 inches of wool on them. Ideally we would use a 16-ish percent protein supplement fed at a pound per head per day or protein blocks to give the rumen microbes a boost to digest the low protein standing grass. The lamb market is rebounding and hopefully will continue, so don't short next year's lamb crop by skipping on supplement this fall. It's easier to put extra condition on ewes while the weather is nice and grass is available. Being surprised by how thin your ewes are at shearing will mean a lot of headaches through lambing.

09/20/2024

What’s the saying? Better late than never…..

We wanted to extend a huge thank you to the Idaho Wool Growers Association, the ram sale committee and to all who were involved in putting on a great ram sale (and lamb feed) this year in July. It takes a ton of work to put on a well organized sale and they simply knocked it out of the park. Thanks also to Lizbeth Wilder, for the fantastic job that she does keeping track of all of the details.

Also, another big thanks to Teuscher Sheep Company for adding our pen of February buck lambs to his operation. We appreciated it immensely.

It was great to see so many old friends and meet some new ones. We will see you all again next year!

Here’s to a successful breeding season and an even better lambing season in 2025. “Sheep On”!

08/25/2024

The March Buck Lamb.
Usually, we don't have many March lambs born here but last breeding season was hot, hot, hot so our lambing season was extended and somewhat later than usual due to the hot August and fall weather. We finished lambing in March with a really cool set of twins....a buck lamb and a ewe lamb. Normally, I don't pay much heed to the March born lambs as it's hard to compare them to the older lambs in the pen. Not so, with this guy. He was an attention getter from Day 1 and he just keeps getting better. Thick front to back, muscular yet smooth in his makeup, good bone and stands square on a great set of feet and legs. Kind of that no-holes kind of a buck with a tremendous body. Range ram breeders, commercial breeders or anyone looking to add depth to their lamb crop through a stud prospect like this, look for this guy next year as a yearling. He will be around and available in 2025.

08/25/2024

You've seen him in the previous post but I forgot to introduce him properly.

Meet "Hickok".

He is one of our ranch raised sons of "Cogburn" and dammed by "Opal" the oldest ewe on the place who hails from our old predominant stud line that produced so many powerful sheep for us over the years. Notables like Great Divide, Jack of Diamonds, Captain Jack and others were of this line. High percentage old style Luxford. These type of rams work well for us and our customers and they breed on for others. Watch for lambs out of him in 2025.

08/22/2024

All dressed up and ready for the dance! Pictured is one of our stud bucks waiting to meet his bevy of dance partners for the annual autumnal soiree. Breeding season has begun here at the ranch. It's always fun to pair the ewes up with the individual stud bucks and this guy will get his fair share of ewes. Here's to a successful breeding season and an even more exciting 2025 lambing season.

07/25/2024

Ya give 'em books and books but all they do is tear the pages out ... there is green grass and good hay available but she prefers the burnt dried up stuff in the ravine. She is kinda cute though. Crazy ewe lamb!

07/10/2024

We’re looking forward to the sale! See you there!

07/06/2024

Happy Ewes!!! We love seeing the ewes on pasture this time of year. Grandmothers, mothers, daughters and granddaughters of the Bold and Body-full Club here are certainly fleshing up well on the summer's bounty of forbs and grasses. They are a uniform and consistent group of females both on the ground and in the barn production records. Not only do we evaluate ewes during the production cycle but we evaluate them all year long. If they aren't able to make a living for themselves during the grazing season, they simply aren't retained. These ladies were commercially slick shorn about two weeks ago. We think green looks mighty good on these girls!

07/04/2024

Happy Birthday, America!
Let Freedom Ring….
Here’s to the Red, White and Ewe!!! 🇺🇸🐑🇺🇸

07/03/2024

Lambs, lambs lambs!!! We were sorting through this winter's buck lambs a couple of days ago and were pleased to find several standouts, including this guy. And nope, he really wasn’t interested in posing for a photo but we managed a couple anyway before he insisted on going his own way.
Born Jan 30th, he's just over 5 months old and growing like a maniac. He's a big bodied, high volume, good b***d twin buck lamb raised on a 7 year old mama who always puts a stellar set of lambs on the ground and weans off the heaviest lambs every year. Besides all of that great stuff, and even though he's in his working clothes (due to the fact that I'm unable to shear anything due to a shoulder injury), he's a handsome fellow with classic Suffolk character. Sired by Western Underground, our lead stud.
Now, the big question.... keep him and grow him out to a yearling or sell now as a lamb? Inquiries are welcome. Message us for more information.

07/01/2024

Form meets function in this stout, good b***d, well made February born buck lamb. Longevity, functionality and predictability run deep in this young buck's bloodlines. He's super cool and he is heading to the Idaho State Ram Sale with 2 of our other buck lambs, July 12-13. Check him and his penmates out at the one and only Suffolk Sale of the West.

06/25/2024

We have recently been working on knocking the wool off of a few ram lambs that are heading to the 103rd Idaho State Ram Sale in July. We weren’t finished with this ram lamb when I snapped the picture. Using a 20 tooth comb on dirty wool wasn’t that much fun (those who know, know) but he started to shape up nicely the more wool we took off. When it’s time to go to work this fall, he will be ready and this solid young buck should sire some awfully good lambs with growth and gain-ability. February born to a 1st time lambing ewe, we think that they both, along with his twin sister held up their ends of the bargain in producing quality, growth and do-ability.
This buck lamb and his 2 penmates can be seen (and bid upon) at the Idaho State Ram Sale, July 12-13th in Filer, Idaho otherwise known as the “Suffolk Sale of the West”. After living and working at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station north of Dubois, Idaho, we started our sheep flock in Idaho many decades ago and we are looking forward to the sale.

04/05/2024

In addition to all the other great characteristics of the Suffolk breed, such as growth and gainability, premium carcass traits, and terminal sire excellence, well known former Suffolk breeder, George Buckham Sr., once said "Never underestimate the power of eye appeal". We concur and heck yeah!

Pictured at 53 days of age, this February born twin buck lamb definitely attracts the camera and he and his twin brother are rocking the scale in growth and gain as well. Their dam is a high producing exceptional ewe who has had 16 live lambs in 6 years and has reared and weaned every lamb. He is sired by our 3 year old stud, "Western Underground" who has been putting some great lambs on the ground for us, many of which will be looking for new homes this year. Please contact us with any questions.

03/31/2024

Easter Blessings from Our Barn to Yours