[eryl]

I often get asked what the best sequence for the colours on a ram harness are. Obviously, you change them every 17 days (the ewe's breeding cycle) but you need to be able to distinguish if a ewe is served twice or even  three times. After years of experimenting with different combinations, the best I've found for easy distinguishability, is orange, followed by purple, followed by yellow.

[twizzel]

I normally start lightest first, so yellow, orange, green, red, blue. Yellow can be a bit hit or miss so normally go orange, green then either red or blue for 3rd cycle.

[eryl]

yellow is fine on top of a dark colour. don't use red and orange next to each other or green and blue. those combinations don't work if the ewe is well-marked first time but only partially marked on a repeat. its best to go every other bright-dark-bright

[twizzel]

To be fair most people would not need to use all colours. 3 would suffice for a tupping period covering 3 cycles unless changing weekly. I have orange green and blue but only ever needed orange and green colours, the blue gets put on but never used.


Yellow might work better on a dark sheep but whatever works for you really   

[ZacB]

Not wishing to hijack the thread but do you use a crayon harness on your ram. In the past we’ve slapped a load of marker onto the rams brisket as the owner advised not to use harnesses for comfort reasons. However we now have our own rams and I do like the idea of using a crayon - any advice?

[twizzel]

Not wishing to hijack the thread but do you use a crayon harness on your ram. In the past we’ve slapped a load of marker onto the rams brisket as the owner advised not to use harnesses for comfort reasons. However we now have our own rams and I do like the idea of using a crayon - any advice?

I bought a mating mark harness last year for a ram I didn’t want to renew the raddle for (he can be bolshy so wanted to leave him to it and bring in every cycle to change colours). It fitted really well, didn’t rub and the crayons were easy to change.

[Buttermilk]

Having black sheep I start with blue then go red and if I use a third colour it is green.  I use a harness mostly but just paste on young lambs who are learning the job.

[shep53]

Does every one know that you can get crayons for different temperature and in the uk  cold climate ones give a better mark than all weather. For me best colour range  is no harness for 17days then red for 17 and blue for 6 .

[SallyintNorth]

Not wishing to hijack the thread but do you use a crayon harness on your ram. In the past we’ve slapped a load of marker onto the rams brisket as the owner advised not to use harnesses for comfort reasons. However we now have our own rams and I do like the idea of using a crayon - any advice?

I am not a fan of slapping raddle on the brisket unless the tup has plenty of wool there, having had several tups develop sores.  I tried different oils, and found vegetable oil (as you would use for cooking) the least irritant, but still got sores on bare boys like the Charollais.  I guess you could wash them off after tupping.

Now I am thinking about it some more, I think I would, if I wanted to raddle this way again, mix the powder with a lanolin-based cream rather than an oil.  Since there is lanolin in their fleece, they should not get a reaction to that.  Perhaps mix in some aloe vera too.

My bad experiences were in commercial flocks, where each tup would be covering 30-50 ewes.  It maybe isn't such a problem with a small flock, where one application per cycle might suffice.  (But then, on ex-BH's farm, he did only apply raddle once per cycle, and we still had trouble with sores on the barer boys.)

I haven't ever tried the harnesses, but I might think about it if I wanted to use raddle routinely again.

[eryl]

ive used harnesses for 50 years and never had a problem. just a couple of tips, put the harness on a couple of days before you put him in .It gives it time to settle and you then just tighten slightly . When I was a stock manager in charge of 350 suckler cows and 2400 ewes, I did the thing of not putting a harness on for the first 17 days, thereby using 'nothing' as an extra colour. It works well as long as you are tupping later when the ewes are all cycling. Now that I have 15 oxfords, I am putting the ram in in 10 days time when they might not all be cycling so I need to know for definite if they've been served. The problem with raddle paint is that (especially when you first put the rams in) is they try and mount everything and can leave a mark on the ewe that looks as if she's been served. With a harness, if this happens, it just leaves a faint stripe and you soon learn which is a real service mark and which isn't.

[ZacB]

The problem with raddle paint is that (especially when you first put the rams in) is they try and mount everything and can leave a mark on the ewe that looks as if she's been served.

We had a very keen ram last year and poker dot ewe’s after a few days - they were certainly covered but not in the typical manner. Many thanks for the advice, I think the harness will be given a go this time round.