Breezy Ridge Rideau Sheep

12/07/2025

Maedi-Visna/OPPv. is a chronic viral disease of sheep and is estimated to be as high as 60% of flocks in North America but, there is an effective strategy to breed in resistance to the virus.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/30400000/OPP%20Handout.pdf

11/23/2025

The Idea behind the Rideau breed is that you need less ewes to produce more fast growing marketable lambs.

11/23/2025

2025 we have had 1 ewe that has produced 8 lambs over the year and 7 ewes produce 7 lambs each for 2025. These Nov. lambs avg. 3.3KG ( 7lb.3oz.) Data collection is important to help identify these productive ewes, who are also parasite resistant and will become the mothers of our future breeders.

11/16/2025

We have 400 Rideau ewes still out grazing in their breeding groups. We have been breeding and selecting for parasite resistance since 2010 under tough conditions . This have given our Rideau flock a heart and soul that is tough and which still maintains high production with great out of season lambing ability and industry low lamb death loss.

11/15/2025

And then a bear showed up this evening on a trail cam on our North Farm 2 k North of our home farm.

11/14/2025

This is why we spend so much on dog food.

11/03/2025

These are our top 4 breeding rams that we are using for our Nov. 1st breeding. All are parasite resistant low f***l egg count rams.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sUzeNf0SR0

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11/02/2025

2025 Breeding day
All our Rideau ewes are weighed, body condition scored, health checked and moved into their breeding groups for single sire mating. This data is stored to follow the ewes production progress, and linked with their parasite resistance data. It's a big day here on the farm.

10/27/2025

GOING TO THE USA This group of pure bred Rideau Arcott, parasite resistant females and Rams scrapie tested RR, getting tattooed with, USA. our flock idea PSE, the id number and year letter. There is a lot of work to get them over the border for breeding stock, but it helps having, our sons in their 30's doing the work.

10/24/2025

Our Fall grazing of the alfalfa/ Grass hay fields before breeding. We have 400 Rideau ewes taking advantage of this inexpensive, high energy, high protein forage, from mid Oct. till early Dec. These ewes are either breeding or in early gestation. This also helps add some extra fertilizer to the fields.

10/21/2025

About 3 weeks before fall lambing starts and that means David and I are vaccinating all the pregnant ewes. It's a nice day so we decided to do the work in the in the outside yard.

09/24/2025

The 2025 parasite resistance breeding team, thanks to Professor Phd. Angela Canovas UofG. and OMAFA. geneticist Delma Kennedy. and researcher Krishani Sinhalege Over 200 animals were tested and measured for levels of parasites through the summer. This breeding program has been going for 15 yrs. and has achieved 92% resistance in the flock and dropped the lamb death loss avg. by 50% compared to the reported Rideau breed avg. making a long lasting genetic change in this strain of the Rideau
breed.