The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: devonlad on March 22, 2015, 09:04:52 am
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Is it true or just one of those old bits of farming folklore. We one had 9 out of 11 ram lambs using an old boy and a friend has just done 9 out of 10 using an old Suffolk someone lent him
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i have the opposite in the last 2 years. A 2 tooth gave me 7 ram lambs and 3 ewe lambs previous year an old boy produced less lambs but an equal split of 3 and 3.
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I had 14 rams out of 17 lambs. Tup I used was 4 years old!!
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Last year I had 10 ram lambs and 3 ewe lambs. This year so far 5 ewes have produced 8 ewe lambs and 3 ram lambs. That's using the same ram as last year and he is just turned 3 years old. 3 more left to lamb.
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i used a ram lamb this year and had 92 rams and 17 females
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i used a ram lamb this year and had 92 rams and 17 females
After which your ram lamb was passed out dead from exhaustion? ;D
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Small sample size, but I've had three ewe lambs and 2 rams from using a ram lamb on my four ewes. One ewe left to go.
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Well I have done a scientific experiment (not intentionally!) .... by putting half flock to 2 year old and half to 5 yr old ram ........... done rather before I read this thread and for no other reason than I couldn't put daughters back to father ............... result
old 4 females and 10 males young 4 males and 15 females
pretty conclusive!
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Well folks my ram is 4 last Jan: poll Dorset This year 50:50 Last year 50:50
A 5 year old Southdown I had gave high percentage of Males first year but the following year the reverse, more Females.
A friend of my mothers once left her ewes with us because we always had a high percentage of females and she always had all males. All her ewes had females and then she moaned because she couldn't keep them all !!!
Never satisfied eh !!! :innocent:
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Ram lamb has produced 54 lambs so far, of which 60% are ewe lambs!
The shearling ram has produced 50% of each
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We ve had 80 pc females so far. :thumbsup:
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Old Texel ram= 80% ram lambs.
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Sheerling tup: 50:50 (sample size- a massive total of 4 lambs ;D)
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Poultry folklore holds that young cockerels produce mostly hens (more to mate with next year?) then more males as they grow older. Our two year old Badger Face ram has produced 80% ram lambs so far this year. The Southdowns started out as all ewe lambs but the rams are now catchng up and we'll likely end up wth the usual 40% ram lambs.
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I read that some people think that putting ACV in drinking water can help the amount of females. Amongst a myriad of other things x
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ACV ?????
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Apple Cider Vinegar.....?
6 year old ram - 6 ewes and one ram lamb. 2 year old ram 1 ewe and 4 rams. Having said that the rams are super so Im quite happy with that and 200% lambing. ;D [size=78%] [/size]
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So, it seems to make bu##er all difference whether your ram is young and innocent or old and experienced :sheep: :sheep:
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So, it seems to make bu##er all difference whether your ram is young and innocent or old and experienced :sheep: :sheep:
Does seem that way- the reason I posed the original question was that I've heard it a few times, usually from "wise" old birds. recently it was said with some authority by an elderly farmer friend of my near neighbour. Having said that he has also offered several other gems, encouraging me to feed my pigs whole chicken carcasses (feathers and all) as best way to fatten them ( I didn't !!) and turning up with a Wiltshire Horn ram ( self shedding hair sheep ) with a thick woolly fleece then insisting Exmoor Horn and Wiltshire Horn were the same breed. I learn much from the wise old birds- just not this particular one it seems
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If there is a nutritional / environmental / hormonal factor which influences lamb gender then I would be interested to know what that is.
I understand that the above factors all have a bearing on fertility/ productivity as in how many lambs the ewes carry, along with breed of course but as a person who sells pure breed ram lambs as breeding tups I do hear all sorts of stories and "old wives tales" designed to deter purchasers from using young rams.
I's nice to hear a few stories going round in support of young rams, even if they are a load of rubbish. I wonder if the negative "wisdom" that hear about young males could possibly be spread by someone desperate to palm off a newbie with their old stock........ :innocent: [size=78%] [/size]
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Yup apple cider vinegar, the one with the Mother of course :)
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Buffy, I'm definitely having a ram lamb as a tup this year. I only had four ewes, but they all lambed within four days of each other, 152 days after he went in! He was in for 7 weeks! I call that proper beginners luck! And we had three of each sex in the end. :thumbsup: