CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE FOR AHART CLUB LAMBS!!!
Ahart Club Lambs became established in the spring of 2003 with the purchase of a small flock of ewes from the Gill Family in Dixon, CA. It was a nice group of ewes that had emerged from a family 4-H and FFA project, and as the kids were going away to college it wasn’t in the cards for the parents to keep the sheep. When I started working in Dixon in 1995 I started being involved with the sheep and knew what they were genetically and how much potential there was in them. They were rich in Bianchi genetics, and there had been rams from Cabaniss and McIlrath used; and then the last ram the Gill Family purchased was the Altemeier buck who was high selling Suffolk ram at Sedalia in 2000.
That old Altemeier ram (who never really had a name until his later years when he became “Abuelo”) really left his mark on the flock with his daughters. He was still breeding ewes as late as 2008, and there are numerous daughters still in production, as well as many granddaughters.
The first ram purchased after the flock changed hands was a Bianchi ram known as “Most Wanted”. Being QQ, he was cheap (which was very appealing at the time), but in the interest of getting some “R” back into the sheep I got rid of him way too soon. Again, he was another sheep that left his mark in the females. There are only two daughters left, both from 2003, and they will die before they ever get sold. One has produced six replacement ewes, and while other one has had too many sons, there are still eight ewes in the flock that are either daughters or granddaughters. A third daughter that died in the fall of 2010 has left behind 13 daughters or granddaughters.
After that the sheep needed some muscle, they needed some “R” back in them, and they needed some milk. That’s when the two “Good Times” sons came to Dixon from Bianchi’s. One of them, the black buck or “Night Life”, is out of the old Bianchi 748 ewe (who in later years when she retired to Dixon was the mother of my Supreme Champion Ewe at the 2009 State Fair), and the other one is just known as Bianchi 5722. There has been quite a bit of line breeding from these two bucks as daughters of one were bred back to the other for two or three years straight. The daughters are great mothers and milkers. 5722 has sired two Champion Ewes in the wether dam show at the California State Fair and the Champion Crossbred Ewe at Reno in 2010.
With all the line breeding that was happening with the two “Good Times” sons there was another Bianchi ram added to the mix at this point. “All Done” was purchased with Donnie Whitworth of MWD Club Lambs at Sedalia. Out of “All In”, the $43,000 Cabaniss ram from Sedalia and a “Good Times” daughter (Bianchi 113). He brought in some of the hamp look and shag, but also fit well into the line breeding side of the equation. He’s sired numerous winners for both Whitworth’s and myself including the ewe lamb that Supreme Ewe over all Breeds at the 2010 Nevada State Fair, who was dammed by a daughter of “Night Life.”
That same Bianchi ewe mentioned above (113) is also the mother of the next ram I purchased. Bianchi 1308 is a moderate framed, wide structured, stout featured ram who is in service today. He was used late in the season in the summer of 2009, and although there were only a few lambs out of him in the 2010 lamb crop one of them was Reserve Champion Ram at the CA State Fair and the Champion Ram at the Cow Palace. Another ram used briefly last year was an Estes sheep “Lorenzo.” Amongst the lambs he sired during his short stay was a pair of ram lambs out of my champion ewe from state fair in 2007, both of which were used this last year on about 15 ewes each. One of those twins, Ahart 006, was Champion at the CA State Fair and Reserve at the Cow Palace last fall. Along with the twins, the two main service sires for the current crop are Bianchi 1308 and another Estes ram “State Farm”.
You’ll find the sheep to be good structured, good doing livestock with a strong emphasis on line bred maternal production. Along the way there are some pretty darn good wethers to be found as well.
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