BSG – Bluefaced Leicester Sheep

Submitted by Jared Lloyd

-Eugene, Oregon.

There was quite a turn out for the Bluefaced Leicester breed and breeders at this year’s event. It was exciting to see many familiar friends and to meet new ones. Breeders and buyers in attendance (I may have forgotten someone) were Robina and Callie Koenig (OR), Mike and Margaret Fryatt (BC), Jeff and Patricia Keeley-Seldomridge (WA), Sue Gustafson (CA), Ann Morrison (WY), Robyn West (MT), Garrett Ramsay (MN), Nancy Gilkeson (OR), Marybeth Bullington-Bury (OR), Kelly Wilder (CA), Janet Tulloch (CA), Lorraine Powell (CA), Brenda Searle (OR), Carol Leyh (CA), Robin Lynde (CA), Virginia Hall (OR) and a tall, gangly cowboy from Colorado…(Jared Lloyd)

Some good friends of the breed, Roy and Myrtle Dow, Steve and Terry Mendenhall, Martin and Joy Dally, Shirley DeMaris, Joyce Torigino, Amy Hamilton and our new friends Harry and Denise from Victoria, BC, were there supporting Bluefaced Leicesters.

The show serves as a hub of breeding stock exchange with many sires being distributed from California to British Columbia to Montana, and ewes going as far away as Minnesota.

The judging was fair and well-balanced with good emphasis on both structure and fleeces. If my notes are correct, there were thirty-eight entries in the Bluefaced Leicester classes. The championship ring was particularly exciting when Robina’s yearling ram, Koenig Langston (brilliantly named after John Cleese’s character in ‘Silverado’), was selected from dozens of champions with six other animals and was pulled to the center of the ring for special recognition. The judge commented that this ram “had the merit that would push the breed forward.” This is a tremendous testimony to his breeder as we all know that producing quality breeding stock is no easy accomplishment!