The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: JFW67 on August 09, 2025, 06:14:18 pm

Title: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: JFW67 on August 09, 2025, 06:14:18 pm

Hi All,

This lambing season I had an unpleasant shock 6 weeks before lambing to find a healthy wee lamb in the field with a healthy mum.  Clearly the result of a ram lamb last year.

This year I am being doubly cautious.

I had assumed I would be weaning the rams as they turned 4 months in an age progressive order.  However, this seems to be clearly not as simple as I thought.   Two of the ramblings have been showing signs of serious interest in the ewes, but when I checked their tags one is the eldest and the other is the youngest . . .  But are comparable in size. .

I’ve now done a bit of extra reading and gather from a few sources that age is less significant  than size in relation to reaching fertility.  Big healthy ram lambs may be fertile significantly earlier than small less developed but older siblings.

I removed the two big lads from the flock leaving the smaller ones behind.  Both have ewe siblings so the mothers will not be stressed by the sudden weaning event.

1.    Can anyone confirm the size beats age theory?

2.    My back up will be to remove any rams that show interest in the ewes,  and remove each ram as he reaches 4 months.  Does this make sense?

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: Rosemary on August 09, 2025, 07:17:15 pm

My understanding is that it's an age / weight thing - with puberty at about 60% of adult weight.
If you only have small numbers of females, I think you can get "nappies" to stop ant shenanigans

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: twizzel on August 09, 2025, 08:18:07 pm

The general rule of thumb is if you want them to do a job and get ewes in lamb, they won’t, and if you don’t want them to get anything in lamb, they will  :roflanim:


We wean everything around 12-14 weeks, so far haven’t had any accidental pregnancies  :fc:

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: JFW67 on August 09, 2025, 09:27:27 pm

Thank you Rosemary and Twizzel

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: Twotwo on August 10, 2025, 01:41:15 pm

I wean the ram lambs about 12 weeks and ewe lambs 16 weeks, seems to work for us… although I left the ewe lambs longer this year for various reasons, it will be interesting to how it effects lambing percentages.

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: Richmond on August 10, 2025, 06:39:14 pm

Do none of you castrate the ram lambs then?

Title: Re: Ram lambs and fertility.
Post by: twizzel on August 10, 2025, 08:48:48 pm

Quote from: Richmond on August 10, 2025, 06:39:14 pm

Do none of you castrate the ram lambs then?

Castrate all of ours but keep 3 or 4 entire each year. This year kept 3 entire and have a rig too.