Culling ewes

roosky

I put all ewes through the race Saturday and marked and ewes with very bad feet, teeth and/or udders for culling.

My issue is that I am culling 20 out of 120 of the ewes that went to the ram last October (17%).

A reason for teh high culling is that I bought a gang of 55 hoggets 7 years ago so they are all coming to the end of the road together but what I need to know is do the rest of ye cull for bad teeth or how bad do teeth need to be before you would cull for it.

P.S. all lowland ground.

rangler1

roosky wrote: »

I put all ewes through the race Saturday and marked and ewes with very bad feet, teeth and/or udders for culling.

My issue is that I am culling 20 out of 120 of the ewes that went to the ram last October (17%).

A reason for teh high culling is that I bought a gang of 55 hoggets 7 years ago so they are all coming to the end of the road together but what I need to know is do the rest of ye cull for bad teeth or how bad do teeth need to be before you would cull for it.

P.S. all lowland ground.

20 to 25% cull would be an average cull here, don't have time here for dodgy ewes

charolais0153

If they have bad mouth and thin. Get rid . if not thin but bad mouth, u decide, I mite keep if only a very good ewe

Farrell

charolais0153 wrote: »

If they have bad mouth and thin. Get rid . if not thin but bad mouth, u decide, I mite keep if only a very good ewe

Could you not sell as bad mouth & suitable for breeding?

charolais0153

Farrell wrote: »

Could you not sell as bad mouth & suitable for breeding?

They'd be few and far between

J.O. Farmer

charolais0153 wrote: »

If they have bad mouth and thin. Get rid . if not thin but bad mouth, u decide, I mite keep if only a very good ewe

Bad mouth and not thin get rid while she's worth something for killing. Next year if she's still there she'll probably be bad mouth and thin and work a lot less.Will her lambs really be worth that much more than her replacement.

J.O. Farmer

Farrell wrote: »

Could you not sell as bad mouth & suitable for breeding?

You can say good behind for what it's worth but probably make no real difference to the price.

stantheman1979

Cull about 20% here, bad teeth, feet, prolapse, bad mothers, if had a single more than once, over 5 yo, any that cause trouble!! Not worth the hassle!! Full stop!! Flog them and get a ewe lamb in

roosky

Ya i just dont like the idea of chancing broken mouth ewes, better off feeding a good one as a bad one......in fairness they seem to be of the older variety in the flock,

Those of you with 20% ish culling would ye be pushing close to 25 % replacement when mortalities are included

arctictree

I have a lovely 2 year old ewe that abandoned her single in March just after a hard birth. Would ye keep her? She's a fine sheep otherwise and her lamb is a smashing weather but had to be bottle fed. Any chance she'd work out this year?

ganmo

roosky wrote: »

Ya i just dont like the idea of chancing broken mouth ewes, better off feeding a good one as a bad one......in fairness they seem to be of the older variety in the flock,

Those of you with 20% ish culling would ye be pushing close to 25 % replacement when mortalities are included

We count mortality in our replacement rate, so if 5% die we could cull 15% all depending on how many hoggets and ewe lambs we have coming through

Bleating Lamb

If you don't want to be wasting time in the spring looking after weak lambs from old ewes you should cull at least 20% each year.

rangler1

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

If you don't want to be wasting time in the spring looking after weak lambs from old ewes you should cull at least 20% each year.

Bad year here with mastitis, and more deaths......you get an odd year like that, replacements will be up to 25% this year, but 20% would be more usual

roosky

ganmo wrote: »

We count mortality in our replacement rate, so if 5% die we could cull 15% all depending on how many hoggets and ewe lambs we have coming through

Surely your culling would decide the replacement rate not your number of hoggets and ewe lambs deciding your culling rate???

ganmo

roosky wrote: »

Surely your culling would decide the replacement rate not your number of hoggets and ewe lambs deciding your culling rate???

It's asre over tits but that's the system dad has and I'm picking my battles.

razor8

Cull anything from 20% to 30% depending on the year and if ewe lambs coming on are good and strong for the ram

thesultan

roosky wrote: »

I put all ewes through the race Saturday and marked and ewes with very bad feet, teeth and/or udders for culling.

My issue is that I am culling 20 out of 120 of the ewes that went to the ram last October (17%).

A reason for teh high culling is that I bought a gang of 55 hoggets 7 years ago so they are all coming to the end of the road together but what I need to know is do the rest of ye cull for bad teeth or how bad do teeth need to be before you would cull for it.

P.S. all lowland ground.[/quot

My culling too is based on lack of teeth and lumps on the dug. Any bearings showing from the year before need to be culled too.

Birdnuts

Looks like I'll be culling up to a third of the ewes this time. Most of them came into together with foot problems the main issue now

J.O. Farmer

ganmo wrote: »

It's asre over tits but that's the system dad has and I'm picking my battles.

Nothing wrong with the system just so long as it means that you cull harder than necessary rather than holding ewes that should be going.

PaddyPerfecto

Save yourself the hardship cull everything and anything your not happy with and replace them with something better, I would cull any with prolapse history, mastitis, chronic foot rot, poor milkers,blind sides and certainly bad mouths mostly (would keep a few if only missing a tooth or two if their strong)

tom_k

I culled 25% approx this year mostly due to mouth and udder issues. The balance were culled from notes and a list made last lambing, prolapse, indifferent or bad mothers . I was happy enough with what was left, however when preparing for rams the other day, I noticed a further 3 that were a lot thinner than they should have been so they're for the gate too.

I promised myself that I'd never give a ewe the benefit of the doubt again and I'm sticking to it.

An odd lot appears in marts here declared as "broken mouth breeders" which usually means they'd be able to stand for the ram and not much else. They usually achieve cull price.

Green farmer

In fairness, if you've a handful of ewes and able to care for and put time into individuals then you can make the exceptions. Other then that and you've a ratio of a few hundred sheep to one man, cull anything that stands out, for any reason. Come lambing time Whatever a ewe ain't up to doing her job, get rid as you'll end up running around doing whatever she ain't .

mcgiggles

tom_k wrote: »

I promised myself that I'd never give a ewe the benefit of the doubt again and I'm sticking to it.

We're doing that with a few ewes from last year so we'll see how this year goes. We've only small numbers and it was our first year at it.. Between bad scanning and newbie naivety we're giving them the benefit of the doubt for this year but will see how it goes..