[SallyintNorth]

Sorry to hear you are disappointed with your results. 

As usual, we put a couple of tups out earlier for a few earlier lambs - usually aiming for Valentine's Day for our very early girls.  (And sometimes we get some unexpected presents earlier in Feb or even at the end of Jan - if a tup lamb had been rather precocious, for instance!)

However this year, the weather was unseasonably warm until 14th Oct, and we saw very little action, so we expect very little to happen before mid-March.  If we'd only given the girls 3 or 4 weeks with the tups, we'd have hardly any lambs at all.

Of our two early batches, we had one scanned and got a reasonable enough result -173%.  But the scanner said they were mostly not early, the majority would probably lamb end March / early April.  So it may have been as long as 5 weeks before the tup really had any work to do.

[suziequeue]

Often worth keeping the ram in for 5 weeks, 35 days which gives each ewe 2 cycles to catch the ram.

Yes - we wanted the girls to stay longer but the breeder called us to say he had run out of grass and had another customer waiting etc etc. So we had to go and pick them up. I think we are going to try and hire a tup for next time around. I know there are lots of posts on here about that so I will do some research over the summer and line something up. I think our local breeder is going more for Ryelands now anyway.


Thanks for all your comments and suggestions

[Daisys Mum]

We will be scanning at the beginning of March, I have everything crossed as I have invested quite a lot in my little flock of Zwartbles, only 5 ewes and a tup. I put raddle on him and all were marked but he was only 9 months old. 2 of my girls will be first timers too.

[bazzais]

Aside from the condolances for the predicament, what a fantastic, informative and positive thread for us/me/you suzie.

Liking fsmnutter - you'll have that extra bit of time with whats born

[muddyhill]

I was chatting to a couple of the local big scale sheep farmers who have also had really poor results this year, one guy having only 50% pregnant, despite, flushing, teaser and proven rams.  General opinion seemed to be the mast year of acorns may have had an affect?   

[benandjerry]

Aside from the condolances for the predicament, what a fantastic, informative and positive thread for us/me/you suzie.


Ditto above 

[suziequeue]

I was chatting to a couple of the local big scale sheep farmers who have also had really poor results this year, one guy having only 50% pregnant, despite, flushing, teaser and proven rams.  General opinion seemed to be the mast year of acorns may have had an affect? 

Well - that's very reassuring in a way ………. it's not just me then    but I have learnt a lot form this thread and there are areas where we can tighten up I think. We are - at last - going on a lambing course this year so I will raise the issue there aswell and see what other people say.

[Daisy-at-the-dairy]

Hmm.  you say you gave your tup 3 weeks with the ewes? That only gives him one hormonal cycle (17 days) per ewe and no second chance if one of them happens to miss for any reason.  On the occasions when I've borrowed a tup it's been on a six week deal, to ensure that he gets two chances with each lady.  We change the raddle colour after the first 3 weeks so that we can see if any ewe has been served at more than one season.  I wouldn't be calling a ram sub-fertile until he'd had this length of opportunity to do his stuff.  For example, if your ewes were a bit low, nutritionally (or indeed, too fat!) when he went in, they might well have failed to hold to the first service.  The poor girls might just have been gearing up for some second-service fun and conception when you took their man away!


There's lots of reasons why the ewes might have failed to take at first service and it has to be said that disease is among these (talk to your vet).  However, I suspect that good attention to nutrition (perhaps including flushing) and giving the tup a fair go at the job might yield the results you want next year without the expense and complication of sponging.


Good luck with the lambs you are expecting and here's hoping for the clatter of rather more tiny hooves next year.

[bazzais]

We did 7 weeks to be sure - still waiting for our first lambie soon - fullish moon tonight so out on the scout



A teaser would be a good and cheaper idea maybe to have on the place - they are nice pets really good to have around.  You could put  him in a few weeks before tupping and renting the rams?

[JulieWall]

That's such a shame, so sorry for you. We borrowed a tup one year and only one ewe conceived, the tup was too small and too young in my opinion but the owner - an old shepherd - insisted he would do his work nevertheless. I'd suspect the ram is at fault in the case of your ewes, for what comfort that gives At least you have six lambs to look forward to, lets hope they are mostly female 

We had our first two lambs yesterday morning, nice big twins 9lb 11oz and 8lb 5oz. The tup had 24 days with the ewes and then went off to the mart because it's time for a change. All my ewes have good udder development so I know he did his job thoroughly. I have a very natural approach to all this stuff, no sponging, scanning, or starve and flush. The lambs stay with the ewes all summer on good pasture, never need to buy creep feed either they grow like mushrooms without that stuff. Then the ewes get about 8 weeks to fatten up before the tup goes in.
I think that only having a few acres means the tup is never so far away that the ewes cannot small him so they are ready when he says they are. If he starts wooing them and pacing the fence I know they are ready. If it's too early I move him and his companion wether to where he can't see them. He tends to have covered them all in a very short time so lambing isn't a long affair.