The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Jamie12 on October 26, 2014, 07:34:11 am
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For those of you with your own tups, what do you do with yours out with breeding season?. I can lease a paddock several miles away but obviously he needs a buddy. He could live with a friends tup, but I think I'd rather not have him mixing with other peoples sheep. I had considered the weather lamb option, I don't need anything for a while but it would be useful to Starr looking.
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I am in this predicament now. The girls are due to lamb in January and the ram really ought to be taken away but I have nowhere other than in with the horses to put him.
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Is there a farmer nearby whose stock you trust who might have a wether? There's not much point in ringing ram lambs unless you specifically want a wether - it slows the growth rate if you're after fat lambs and definitely doesn't work for breeding stock!
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There's a few local I may trust to purchase a weather lamb, but I'd probably be fairly picky. In hindsight I should have bought one from the place my tup came from
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Could you fence off part of your pasture at home? (permanent stob and mesh with a couple of top wires, not an electric fence) That way he'll still see the ewes so as not be on his own, but won't be able to annoy them while they are lambing.
Really the best option though is a wether. Maybe you could get one of a primitive breed which would need to be fattened over the winter anyway, and could stay with the tup until the summer when it would be ready for slaughter. Then he will have his own weaned sons to keep him company, but in a separate bit until you want him back with the ewes.
Our set up here, with primitives, is to wean the lambs at 4 months, and put them in with our stock tups (five of them). After the tups have done their job in Nov they go back in with the hoggs - this year we didn't have a single bust-up; they just got on with life as if the big boys had never been away. They are all safely out of the way during lambing, then the meat boys go off in August, a couple of weeks before the male lambs are weaned, and so we go round and round. Our tup bit is across the road and double fenced with hedges too, so no chance of escapees.
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Unfortunately I lease grazing, so limited as to what I can do really. There's a few smaller paddocks adjoining but he would still need a buddy. Am I best with a Shetland or something?. Tup is a charollais
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A Shetland wether would be fine, if that's what you have access to - they are plentiful, not costly, need to be overwintered til July or August of their second summer before reaching a worthwhile size, then taste great once you eat them. If you got two, if you have the space, then they wouldn't have to make their final journey alone, which must be scary for a flock animal.
Relative size of tup to wether doesn't matter in the least.
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I have the choice of a texel, Suffolk, mule or herdwick from where my girls came from. Or a black zwartble cross
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Herdy will probably cause you the least problems.
2nd choice the Mule.
Texel - IMO, more likely to get overweight and have breathing problems.
Suffolk - IMO, more likely to have foot problems
No personal experience with Zwarties or crosses thereof, but people do talk about them needing feed. Quite tame, though.
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The texels and suffolks are crosses out of mules, herdwicks are a no go as uncastrated apparently :-\
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I keep a wether as company for my tup when he's not in with the girls. The wether is also used as an "uncle" for the lambs once they are split off from the main flock, and also as a general dogs body when I need to keep a sick sheep inside etc, he is brought in as company. Obviously you have to allow for the extra head in your grazing calculations (ie he takes grazing that could otherwise be used by another ewe), but I feel that its worth having him around.
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Jamie - don't know where you are, but there will be a Shetland breeder near you (Shetlands aren't rare anymore) and see if you can buy a couple of wethers off them. Most small-scale Shetland breeders still ring their boys as it makes it easier to keep them through the winter and their second summer.
I would not keep a commercial breed or cross-breed as companions past the fat-lamb stage if you want to eat them yourself. I have in the past done this and then sold in the mart when the tup had to go and got decent money for them if sold at the right time.... However, they must have been very fat...
Another reason for a smaller wether companion is that there will be absolutely no challenging behaviour.
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I have been offered a portland , which I shall go and see. My friend may have a couple of Shetland weathers available so fingers crossed
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I keep a wether as company for my tup when he's not in with the girls. The wether is also used as an "uncle" for the lambs once they are split off from the main flock, and also as a general dogs body when I need to keep a sick sheep inside etc, he is brought in as company. Obviously you have to allow for the extra head in your grazing calculations (ie he takes grazing that could otherwise be used by another ewe), but I feel that its worth having him around.
My position exactly. We now have Little Ted - he was a scrawny tup lamb, so not he's a less scrawny wether and despite being a third of the size of Taylor, he'll shove him off the feed trug. Size isn't everything ;)
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I have large amounts of shetland wethers which are doing some conservation grazing which you could choose from if you wish :thumbsup:
My tups go back in with eachother after tupping, squeeze them all up in tight hurdles and leave them for 12 hours or more, when they let them out they smell like eachother plus are hungry so go and graze together, they then get given poor grazing in a corner somewhere over winter and get some hay thrown in if its heavy snow
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I run 2 tups with my ewes.
They go in on the 5 th of November for an April lambing. They run with the ewes right through the winter and I only take them out when I wean the tup lambs next summer and they stay in with the ram lambs until the ram lambs go off, which will be on the 4th of november.
No problems at all with this method. Ram lambs don't fight (I don't castrate) as the big boys keep the peace.
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Depends on the tup. I've known tups penned together so tightly they couldn't turn around and they still managed to do serious damage to each other. Tups tend to get more aggressive as they age. Might be OK if you keep them out of sight, smell and sound of the ewes for most of the year but, particularly with a horned breed, you could get all kinds of, literally, bloody trouble. Don't forget a ram's skull is six times as thick as a human skull and they can sprint at 30 mph for short distances.
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Depends on the tup. I've known tups penned together so tightly they couldn't turn around and they still managed to do serious damage to each other. Tups tend to get more aggressive as they age. Might be OK if you keep them out of sight, smell and sound of the ewes for most of the year but, particularly with a horned breed, you could get all kinds of, literally, bloody trouble. Don't forget a ram's skull is six times as thick as a human skull and they can sprint at 30 mph for short distances.
Yes sometimes they will still fight even if cooped up tight, I had a horned (shetland) ram break another rams pelvis last year, fortunately all of the tups we have now are polled and seem to fight or bother eachother less then when we had horned tups
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i have 3 tups and a teaser..they all just live together in my neighbors garden along with his 5 tups! and on the off season im normally showing them
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I always put my tup in with ram lambs over or young rams away from ewes in summer.
Hope this helps.
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Ours have run with ram lambs in the past on they're down time and they were very good. They otherwise live in they're little group of three, they're two brothers and a year older brother so are very tight.