We tend to have a lot of our commercial ewes go to 8-10 years+ happily raising twins or triplets, If you are going to breed just remeber the gestation is 5 months & their normally put to the tups around August - October time for late winter / early spring lambings although some people do lamb around xmas (God knows why??? - too much hassle), you also have to work out will you lamb indoors or outdoors (Ours are out during the day & we check 5-6 times day & night approx every 2 hours when their in the barn next to the shed at night.) But we do have 200-400 normally.
Also bear in mind:
Purebreeds & crossbreeds finding the right tup ( What offspring has he produced? e.g poor quality lambs)
Crossbreeding - If you do avoid large headed breeds like texels & charolais as their a sod to lamb even for experienced people & often resulting in c-sections (Although great meat breeds)
What you will do with the lambs after? If their male you will have to separate off after 6 months if kept uncastrated (Its easy to do.) To avoid unwanted pregnancies ( Can you bring yourself to ring castrate them yourself or eat them?) & extra females can't be kept if you own the father. ( A good one would cost around £400+)
Stud fees
Scanning will you do it? (Again more cost)
Weaning - This is normally done from 4-6 months ours are normally 5-6 months (But some people do wean from 3-4 months which I think is cruel
)
Extra veterinary fees (It's not uncommon for c-sections)
How many you've got to lamb?
Physically knowing how to lamb a ewe having problems giving birth.
Resuscitating lambs or ones having trouble breathing at birth.
Predators - foxes, dogs & badgers will happily take lambs upto 2-3 months in size.
Housing (Young lambs don't like draughts or cold frosts) & we tend to keep ours in indoor pens with the ewes for 3 days -2/3 weeks depending on weather / lambs size or number of lambs.)
The right feed stuffs
Extra feed portions & costs (These & feeds will differ when in lamb & actually when they've lambed) & bottle feeding if need be (It has to be done every 2/ 3 hours)
Ear tags ( you have to either give them breeding tags or kill tags - & they are now electronic & cost around £3-£5 each & should be done from birth.
Livestock movement laws - check this with defra but you have to record all animal movements off your home premises. (Its easier than with cattle though.)
Hmm right I think that's all of it covered - I'm sure there's more that people can exspand on but if your intending on getting sheep - I would talk to your vets & local sheep farmers who do it on a large scale & also invest in a good sheep management book for beginners or 2. I personally love working with sheep & prefer it to cattle work & I do love lambing time but for us it is a mental time of year which can be both very mentally & physically draining when doing large numbers ( Its ok for people who have 20 or so which tend to really take their time lambing
) But when you have 400 or so over a 2-3 month period with maybe just 1 or 2 upto 20/30 a day lambing & you have no pens whatsoever left to put any because they've all decided to lamb at once, then maybe bottle feed some & feed all the others plus other livestock, let the ewes out & check approx 10 times a day & ring castrate a load & move a load onto pasture & individually feed approx 20-30 ewes penned with lambs & bring the ewes in again at night & maybe lamb 1 or 2 & maybe call a vet amongst the other farm work - you'll appreciate we don't get much sleep & rest that time of year if you know what I mean
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Topic: How old is Too old? (Read 12476 times)
