Once again, we manned the booth for the Ontario Katahdin Sheep Association at the annual Hastings Ploughing match. This was held at the Jarrell farm on Blessington Road near Belleville, so was quite close to us for a change.
We displayed 2 ewe lambs and an adult ram who is very friendly and nicely spotted so he attracted lots of attention, and he loved having kids pet him.
After 11,000- yes 11000 visitors came through on Wednesday we were both exhausted. We could have sold our entire flock of sheep about 10 times over. We did not have any ewes left for sale, even before the show.
We speculate that the reason for all the interest is the fact that a lot of baby boomers are retiring to the countryside, and want to have a hobby farm and a few sheep to keep them active and not bored. Sheep are easier to handle than cattle or horses being a lot smaller.
Of course, there was the obligatory thunderstorm on Thursday afternoon. There was a lot of wind and the roof of the tent next to us flew away. Our sturdy older tent managed to survive the storm without incident.
We displayed 2 ewe lambs and an adult ram who is very friendly and nicely spotted so he attracted lots of attention, and he loved having kids pet him.
After 11,000- yes 11000 visitors came through on Wednesday we were both exhausted. We could have sold our entire flock of sheep about 10 times over. We did not have any ewes left for sale, even before the show.
We speculate that the reason for all the interest is the fact that a lot of baby boomers are retiring to the countryside, and want to have a hobby farm and a few sheep to keep them active and not bored. Sheep are easier to handle than cattle or horses being a lot smaller.
Of course, there was the obligatory thunderstorm on Thursday afternoon. There was a lot of wind and the roof of the tent next to us flew away. Our sturdy older tent managed to survive the storm without incident.
