[Azzdodd]

As preparation for next year start going through my head I'm looking for some feedback on banding ram lambs last year I did band and my boys went off about 7-8 months but no problems around tupping...this year I did not and all my ram lambs went about 6 months but the last 2 started trying to get friskey....I don't have facilities to seperate they all live together 24/7 ram as well....I know my grass was a little better this year but the ram lambs were off about 1 1/2 months earlier? What does everyone else do.....

Thanks

[SallyintNorth]

A cautionary tale...

In 2007 there was an outbreak of the dreaded FMD.  Stock couldn't be moved except direct to slaughter.  A farmer near us couldn't sell his Swaledale tup lambs as stores in midsummer, as he normally did every year... 

So when choosing not to band, remember you may not have an option but to have entires about the place.  Even if you normally finish all your lambs in one season, so normally send them all direct to the abattoir, lambs can become ill and take longer to finish. 

Personally, if I didn't have anywhere I could keep randy tup lambs come tupping time, I'd band the lot.

[Foobar]

Entires will grow faster, and be leaner.  You could always do half-half, leave the first ones born entire and band the last half?


I leave all mine entire now, unless I need to keep the odd one as a companion for my ram.  I'd rather they be eating the grass when it's available in summer, than eating my hay over winter.  But then I separate boys and girls about now for a month, and the lambs will go by October when I start tupping.

[devonlad]

when we started out we banded our ram lambs as all the advice we got favoured this. Without a doubt it is the single most stressful part of our shepherding year ( though the wife seems slightly less twitchy about it than me). By some miraculous twist we actually managed a 100% strike rate and didnt miss a single one. it made management later on much easier and we didnt need to worry about seperation later on which at that time would have been a real headache. The second year despite now being old hands at it we managed to leave a couple behind and as a result had to keep them seperate as they got bigger. the following year we decided to not bother, just to see the difference, as we had improved fencing and could seperate them easily. all the warnings about them proving much more difficult than wethers to handle seemed unfounded and they were good to go a bit earlier. since then we no longer castrate which for me is a blessed relief. We have also managed on a couple of occasions to sell the odd one for breeding as they have developed into good strapping individuals. for us its all about ease of management. I understand they@re can be concerns re "ram taint". we've not noticed anything so are likely to continue not doing it now

[SteveHants]

I don't band either - I dont want to risk anything which slows the lamb down when lambing outside. Seems to work fine for me, but I do have different places I can put them.

[twizzel]

We band all of ours, all commercial type- mainly texel x. They finish quickly (6 mths) and are lean. We bought in half a dozen stores this year and one of them is a ram lamb, bit of a pain in the bum as he's nowhere near finished. I think I'm going to have to put him and his castrated friend in another field soon...

[mowhaugh]

The only things we don't band are anything that looks like it might have the potential to grow on as a pedigree breeding tup.

[mart2671]

I dont band any of mine ( Zwartbles and Zwartbles x ) as find they grow alot quicker and get better weights in a shorter period of time . April born lambs started going early August at 45kg lw .

[Fleecewife]

I think you need to think about other aspects of this question than just finishing weights.   
 
As you can't separate your ewe and tup lambs, then by leaving them entire you are risking the ewe lambs being impregnated by the tup lambs.  This can happen from about 5 months.  There are three possible results of this.
Firstly, if you are keeping the ewe lambs then you will get a few which will lamb late winter, need housing, extra feeding and so on, which will be difficult as you won't know they're in lamb.  This would put your breeding plan for the following year out of kilter.
Secondly, if you are selling them on as stores, then ethically it is unacceptable to pass on ewe lambs which you know are at risk of being in lamb to keepers who will not know that, and will then have the problems you would have had if you had kept them, except you had the advantage of knowing the risks.
Thirdly, if the ewe lambs are going for slaughter at the same age as the tup lambs, then they just could possibly be in lamb.  This would mean that the slaughtermen would have the horror of finding live lambs when they gut the animal they have just killed, and the problem of how to deal with that.  I know they hate finding that, and it's not much fun for the foetuses either.  Also, if they are in lamb, then your ewe lambs would not make your required weight as they will be trying to grow lambs of their own as well as grow themselves.
 
The obvious way around this is to castrate all your males, until you have facilities to separate the two sexes.
 
Oh yes, you asked what others do...we separate out all our males at 4 months and they go into a field with our stock tups on the other side of the road so there is no chance whatsoever of them getting together with any females (including our neighbour's as we have planted a double fenced hedge which they can't get over or through).
We only band those tup lambs we know we don't want to assess as breeding stock later (ie they have a fault visible at birth), but then we don't breed our sheep primarily as meat, but as breeding stock.  Any tups which don't make the grade go in the meat queue for slaughter at 16 months.  We rarely slaughter ewe lambs but when we do they stay in with the ewe flock until they too are 16 months.  At tupping time the ewe lambs are kept well away from the breeding groups.