The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Kimkimmy on April 03, 2016, 04:40:17 pm
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We have successfully lambed 15 lambs from 12 ewes. When the ladies came indoors we separated our ram. The ewes and lambs are now turned out in an adjacent field to the ram (we only have 5 acres and all 3 fields are adjacent). He's not a happy chap. I've been told that there would be no problem with him joining the ewes and lambs over summer as the ewes will not come back into season until the days get shorter. We could then turn him out with one of the castrated male lambs (wether). Is this correct ?. Advice much appreciated.
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:thumbsup:
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That's what we do, but the tup doesn't usually leave during lambing.
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Rams in general don't bother with the lambs or ewes. There is the odd exception, just keep an eye on him for a while but should be ok. It's how they live naturally.
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I separate ram and wether from the full ewes during lambing, then pop them back into the same field when the lambs are a few weeks old. All are within sight of each other. I do it so the boys have somewhere to shelter if the weather turns bad (so they don't try to get into the shelter with any full ewes or ewes with lambs at foot).
But that's because of my setup, might be different if I had one huge barn for them all.
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We always separate the rams from the ram lambs and from the rest of the flock. We don't bother with wethers - neither use nor blinkin' ornament as my dear old Dad used to say. Apart from other considerations we don't want them eating the cake we feed to the ewes if the weather's bad, as it can cause urinary calculi in rams.
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Thanks for that post M.Farmer, i didn't know about that re the rams/feed.
Feed is another reason I split the lads, they eat the hard feed that I give to the in-lamb girls. The lads still get their fair share too in their field - just not nearly as much.