[thenovice]

Hello, i was wondering if anyone could give me some advice regarding my lambs please. I have 4 well grown poll dorset cross ewe lambs that i was hoping to put to the ram late in the year, poss end of november. Is it better to put them to an older more experienced small ram that i could borrow, or could i use my southdown/hebridean ram that i have, but is only a lamb and so still growing and completely unexperienced? Im just a novice, and boy is it a steep learning curve, so any pointers would be brilliant. Many thanks, rich

[Rosemary]

I'm not much more than a novice but I think the usual advice is to ensure that one of the partners is experienced 

[thenovice]

thanks, i was wondering if that would be the case. It seems  to be in almost everything in life!

[Corrie Dhu]

Old ewes with young rams, old rams with young ewes.

That said I've broken the rules loads of times and never had a problem.  Just bought a Beltex tup lamb today to use on Texel x ewe lambs, and I can't put him with my ewes cos he won't reach, lol.  As long as you aren't over facing him with loads of ewes to tup I'm sure he would be fine.

[thenovice]

actually he is very small compared to the ladies, so you may have a point haha. By the sounds of it im better off borrowing that southdown ram. Thanks again for the advice, this seems like a good place for us begginers to go, despite the fact im worse than useless with a laptop and its taken me 10 minutes to write 3 sentences!  Rich

[Rosemary]

You'll get better - typing and tupping 

[SallyintNorth]

actually he is very small compared to the ladies, so you may have a point haha. By the sounds of it im better off borrowing that southdown ram.

Older ewes can get quite aggressive with a smaller tup lamb who doesn't quite know what he's doing - and had it been horned older ewes with a smaller, polled tup lamb then I'd have said for sure borrow the experienced lad.

But with polled ewe lambs, even though they're bigger than your (presumeably horned?) tup lamb, I don't think you would have any problems. 

If it were me I would use the ram I prefer - and if that's the homebred then keep an eye out to see that he and the girls settle into the job ok.  You could always follow him with the borrowed tup 17 days later (to check he's not firing blanks.)

[Sylvia]

In my experience "love" will always find a way

[humphreymctush]

All these considerations about the experience of the ram etc relate to situations where 1 ram has 50 ewes to find in some rugged hill country. There is no question that your ram lamb will manage to mate with your 4 ewe lambs. The bigger ram will give you bigger lambs.
Why dont you wait a year. Your ewe lambs will not grow to their full potential if you breed from them in their first year.

[feldar]

I must admit i don't personally like the idea of breeding from ewe lambs but poll dorsets can be quite large in their first year and may nearly be shearling size but still classed as lambs, so it is personal choice.
One of our ram lambs has successfully tupped some of our older ewes whilst he was still on his mother!!
Much to our dismay. We were hoping he hadn't caught them but he has, so that was just case of bad sheparding on our part. Oh well, we all make mistakes; wean them earlier next year!

[thenovice]

thanks SallyintNorth, that sounds like a plan! Seems only fair to let the little guy have a try, and its the taking part that counts  Does anyone have an opinion on southdown vs lleyn ewes? Im getting quicker, this only took 5 minutes