[kanisha]

technically unless your white tup was put to a white ewe you should average 50% white lambs 50%coloured / patterned from the white lambs of the  white tup.

[jaykay]

Do you tup them as hoggs? I don't til they're shearlings, my hoggs aren't fully grown.

Anyway: animals that are white, from the white tup, may well also have a different gene from their mums. Ie if mum was moorit, they'll have a moorit gene from mum, if she was a grey katmoget they'll have both a black gene and a katmoget gene from mum.

So a moorit tup, would give the lamb a 'self-colour' and a 'moorit' gene, and if the white hoggs give their lamb the gene they got from their mum, you'll get different colours, if they give their lambs the white gene they got from their dad, you'll get white lambs again. It's a 50:50 chance, so I suppose on average half your lambs will be white and half coloured, though of course it never works out perfectly to statistics!

[Cheviot]

Hi,
Thanks Kanisha and Jaykay,
it will be nice to get some hopefully, more colourful lambs next year.
Here in Scotland we have lambs untill the turn of the year, then we call them hoggs until they are shorn, then obviously they become shearlings, so ours will be shearlings when they go to the tup. Sorry for the confusion.
Regards
Sue

[jaykay]

That's the system here as well, except that sometimes folk start calling well-grown lambs 'hoggs' from around tupping time, though officially they're still lambs then, til the year turns.

I had a tup with two dominant black genes the year before last and almost every lamb was black. I exchanged him for a katmoget tup with a black and a brown gene this year, and got lots more variety, which was nice :-)

[Cheviot]

WOW.
gorgeous lambs, thanks for posting the pics, maybe next year  my lambs will be as colourful.
Regards
Sue

[jaykay]

Thank you