Ram for ewe lambs

arctictree

Have a small flock here and thinking of taking a few of my heaviest ewe lambs and putting them with the Ram this year.

Anyone know if I would be better off getting a Ram lamb? Would our 4 year old Ram be a bit heavy/slow for them?!

On the other side, would a new Ram lamb be too small for our 80Kg ewes?!

razor8

adult ram would be preferred for ewe lambs as they show a short heat, a ram lamb may miss them

a good ram lamb should be well fit for a 80kg ewe. what weight do you think he is?

Richk2012

arctictree wrote: »

Have a small flock here and thinking of taking a few of my heaviest ewe lambs and putting them with the Ram this year.

Anyone know if I would be better off getting a Ram lamb? Would our 4 year old Ram be a bit heavy/slow for them?!

On the other side, would a new Ram lamb be too small for our 80Kg ewes?!

Do yourself a favour and dont lamb your ewe lambs .

If you have a small flock i take it your not full time sheepfarming ??..

I done it last year , after about 5 years of not doing it .
Was a bit of disaster .
Most of them had twins and were under pressure to rear them .

We scanned out at something like 1.9 last year as alot of the ewes had triplets , so fostering a twin lamb off the ewe lambs onto a single ewe wasnt an option , as any single ewe that lambed was destined for a triplet lamb , leaving the ewe lambs to rear the twins themselves .

They were plenty big at tipping 55kg+ and they got fed seprately from the ewes , pre and post lambing ..

I still have a few of these lambs here not fit to kill , when the rest are long gone .
And even though the hoggets themselves have been on good grass for the last 7 weeks after weaning , i can still pick out what sheep reared lambs and what ones didnt ..

c_cathal

I second this opinion. Hold off on the ewe lambs. They'll break you heart in spring, especially if you have a few. You'll be milking and bottling and cursing yourself.

Conmaicne Mara

I was dabbling with the idea of letting a ram to the best of my ewe lambs. To be honest I've thought better of it since. Too much work for too little reward right now. Prefer to let the lamb grow on a bit and have her knocked up the following year.

Western Pomise

It's a false economy putting ewe lambs to ram,you end up having to watch them VERY carefully in Spring,will have losses no matter what you do and they never make as good of sheep afterwards as Dry Hoggets.

waterworld87

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa culchies

razor8

Richk2012 wrote: »

Do yourself a favour and dont lamb your ewe lambs .

If you have a small flock i take it your not full time sheepfarming ??..

I done it last year , after about 5 years of not doing it .
Was a bit of disaster .
Most of them had twins and were under pressure to rear them .

We scanned out at something like 1.9 last year as alot of the ewes had triplets , so fostering a twin lamb off the ewe lambs onto a single ewe wasnt an option , as any single ewe that lambed was destined for a triplet lamb , leaving the ewe lambs to rear the twins themselves .

They were plenty big at tipping 55kg+ and they got fed seprately from the ewes , pre and post lambing ..

I still have a few of these lambs here not fit to kill , when the rest are long gone .
And even though the hoggets themselves have been on good grass for the last 7 weeks after weaning , i can still pick out what sheep reared lambs and what ones didnt ..

would strongly disagree, i have been doing it for over 10 years, yes they are more work at lambing and yes you will have higher mortality than ewes. i have successfully reared twin lambs on ewe lambs with no negative impact on there mature size, if its in there genes it wont matter

what i would say is you need to manage seperately, meal mother for 5/6 weeks then introduce creep to lambs. Key for me is weaning them early at around 12 week old and putting ewes to good grass

most this year have made factory weights and any that are not will go store. Even one lamb a piece at an average of €70/€80 leaves you with a very cheap hogget

Bizzum

waterworld87 wrote: »

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa culchies

The next time you're eating you dinner you can thank one for producing it for ya.

Conmaicne Mara

Bizzum wrote: »

The next time you're eating you dinner you can thank one for producing it for ya.

Did you not know the magic cellophane fairy uses hocus pocus to make food appear directly on benevolent supermarket shelves, all free from blood, sweat, and any connection with reality.

Bizzum

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Did you not know the magic cellophane fairy uses hocus pocus to make food appear directly on benevolent supermarket shelves, all free from blood, sweat, and any connection with reality.

Careful now. That reality is quare stuff.

Conmaicne Mara

Bizzum wrote: »

Careful now. That reality is quare stuff.

True, even a small dose of it does strange things to a person.

sea12

Western Pomise wrote: »

It's a false economy putting ewe lambs to ram,you end up having to watch them VERY carefully in Spring,will have losses no matter what you do and they never make as good of sheep afterwards as Dry Hoggets.

Agree did it two years ago and it was pure hardship at lambing. At the end of the lambing season it's the lady thing u want. Also the ewe lambs were not near as strong the following year as dry hoggets.

Western Pomise

razor8 wrote: »

would strongly disagree, i have been doing it for over 10 years, yes they are more work at lambing and yes you will have higher mortality than ewes. i have successfully reared twin lambs on ewe lambs with no negative impact on there mature size, if its in there genes it wont matter

what i would say is you need to manage seperately, meal mother for 5/6 weeks then introduce creep to lambs. Key for me is weaning them early at around 12 week old and putting ewes to good grass

most this year have made factory weights and any that are not will go store. Even one lamb a piece at an average of €70/€80 leaves you with a very cheap hogget

That sounds quite costly system for what you get in return,if weaned at 3 months off Ewe lambs their offspring(even single lambs )will be quite light and need lots of meal(euros worth) to amount to much,only my opinion.

Richk2012

razor8 wrote: »

would strongly disagree, i have been doing it for over 10 years, yes they are more work at lambing and yes you will have higher mortality than ewes. i have successfully reared twin lambs on ewe lambs with no negative impact on there mature size, if its in there genes it wont matter

what i would say is you need to manage seperately, meal mother for 5/6 weeks then introduce creep to lambs. Key for me is weaning them early at around 12 week old and putting ewes to good grass

most this year have made factory weights and any that are not will go store. Even one lamb a piece at an average of €70/€80 leaves you with a very cheap hogget

If it working for you keep at it .
Jus giving my opinion on my expierence doing it .

Where are you farming Razor ????

However the op is farming in Roundwood , one of the highest villages above sea level in the country .
Im not too far from it myself and have some similar hilly land .

I personally dont think the area is that well suited to ewe lambs rearing twins , with the spring grass growth so slow and the lack of shelter in the most part it leaves a lot of stress on the ewe lamb milking for two .

razor8

Richk2012 wrote: »

If it working for you keep at it .
Jus giving my opinion on my expierence doing it .

Where are you farming Razor ????

However the op is farming in Roundwood , one of the highest villages above sea level in the country .
Im not too far from it myself and have some similar hilly land .

I personally dont think the area is that well suited to ewe lambs rearing twins , with the spring grass growth so slow and the lack of shelter in the most part it leaves a lot of stress on the ewe lamb milking for two .

sorry, didnt mean to be snappy, just giving a opinion as well

I'm in Leitrim so land far from very good. have the same problems with late spring. Know every year is different but this year i couldn't tell which ewe lambs were dry or had lambs other than by looking at their tags but this was an exceptional autumn grazing year

if your keeping 20/25% replacement every year i think even budgeting at €50 a lambs and hoping for €75 plus is too much to pass over. it goes along way to making the year more profitable

razor8

Western Pomise wrote: »

It's a false economy putting ewe lambs to ram,you end up having to watch them VERY carefully in Spring,will have losses no matter what you do and they never make as good of sheep afterwards as Dry Hoggets.

if your keeping them what is the advantage of a big dry hogget? if you can manage to have her in good nick going to the ram the next year imo it is a success

if ya have 50 lambs from 50 ewe lambs @ €70 a piece its an extra €3500 for your trouble. Minus about two bags of meal each, its still better than nothing

arctictree

Lads - thanks for the replies. Looks like strong arguments for and against as I suspected.

We just reseeded most of the farm, so the growth is good. Also, although we are high up, most of the ground is not hill ground, it was nearly all ploughed.

I will be lambing late anyway, the ewe lambs have plenty of grass so I think the biggest of them should be ready. Maybe I'll just do 25% of them or so....BTW - these are PB lleyns.

Bullocks

arctictree wrote: »

Lads - thanks for the replies. Looks like strong arguments for and against as I suspected.

We just reseeded most of the farm, so the growth is good. Also, although we are high up, most of the ground is not hill ground, it was nearly all ploughed.

I will be lambing late anyway, the ewe lambs have plenty of grass so I think the biggest of them should be ready. Maybe I'll just do 25% of them or so....BTW - these are PB lleyns.

How did the ewe lambs fair out for you artic ?
I'm thinking ahead and wondering what I'll do next year (if I still have sheep ) and thinking will I tip my ewe lambs, they're three weeks old now and hopefully would be heavy enough for tipping later on .
What breed is easy lambing or do ye tend to use on ewe lambs ?