2010 Lamb Crop and Barn Opening

March 4, 2010 by fred.

With one ewe lamb left to lamb we can now turn our attention to presenting our 2010 lamb crop to you. The lambs will range in age from Jan. 20 to the 1st week of March.

The sires seeing the majority of service for this lamb crop include Marx 7007, Knop 5799 (Overload), and Levi (Knop 4981). Other sires seeing service include
Ike (Knop 5295), Gold Mine (Knop 5047), Roy (Knop 5865), and Step Ahead (Knop 5266). A more complete review of the genetics of these sires can be found on the sires page.

From a show lamb perspective, we will have many additional prospects to offer sired by Marx 7007 this season. We only had a handful of wethers sired by 7007 last season and they were very popular finding homes with the Randy Hill group of Indiana and the Porter family of Arizona.

Also selecting key show lambs were Weston Hill of OK, the Nelson family of MN, the McCauley family of NM, the Larry Daniel family of OK, the Ronda White family of IA, the Bob Bergquist family of NE, Tyler Leete of IA, and Megan Lawing of NC.

The Overload sire group is just plain interesting in terms of their phenotypic design, correctness of structure, and their 3D hip shape. They move about the pen in a very attractive, stylish manner. The growth curve of the Overload lambs appears to be favorable in size and scale projecting to either side of the middle 140’s show weight when optimum. There is no doubt that the PC genetics on the maternal side of Overload is strongly breeding through in terms of the old Heupel hip design locked in PC’s pedigree–maybe the best hip structure I have ever seen!

Most of the 7007 and DeSpain 86 ewe lamb daughters saw the service of the Levi (Knop 4981) ram we brought back to the genetic table. Levi is a very moderate sized mature ram (34″ at the shoulder) with a huge top, awesome levelness of hip and muscle. To state that his wethers out of the LSU and DeSpain Hampshire bred females are really nice would be an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!!!! This sire group is the youngest on the farm and will find favor with many show families this season. Several of these lambs resemble the lamb our daughter Brittney won Grand with in Kansas City, 1994 in terms of shape and design.

It is very rewarding to have satisfied customers using Knop rams. The double line-bred genotypic design of our rams insures that they will breed true. History documents that Knop rams will sire a great show lamb look and at the same time natural carcass merit. Our customers have shown that using Knop rams on Hampshire based females is a WINNING COMBINATION!!! A most recent example would be the Grand Champion lamb at the 2010 Dixie National bred by Ernie Tannehill. This champion’s mother was sired by Leo (Knop 4698) bred to a Cabaniss female.

We plan to open up our farm to viewing of the lambs on the weekend of March 20. We will be making weekly decisions on wether prospects as scrapie test results are received. Please consider this your personal invitation to view our 2010 ram lambs, show lambs and ewe lambs. Our wethers will compete at any level. The same can be said of our show ewe lambs as evidenced by Megan Lawing’s Supreme Grand Champion Commercial female at the 2009 North Carolina State Fair with a ewe lamb from our farm.

We look forward to your visit this year.

The Fred Knop Family

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