[Foobar]

Are lambing malpresentations environment or genetic or both?
I've had a lot of "simple" malpresentations (leg back, legs not extended, coming backwards, etc) for the past two years, on ewes that previously had no problems.  CS of the ewes has been the same/similar every year, but I've used the same ram for the past two years.  Could these issues have been caused by the ram's genes?
(My fields are flat, and the pre-lambing management has always been the same.)

[NLL]

we used a different ram on some of ours last year, 90% of his lambs were leg-back presentations.he has gone and the new ram did his share this year and no leg-back presentations on the same ewes.

[SallyintNorth]

I have no personal experience to relate, one way or the other, but I've heard other cattle folks say that breech presentations come from the bull so I guess the same could be true of tups. 

[Foobar]

Interesting to hear that NLL!
I have a second group who were tupped with a different ram, starting lambing next week.  Apart from the actual tupping they have been managed together with the other group, so it will be interesting to see how they pop out.


Either way, that ram is going this year anyway as I have too many of his offspring now.

[Blacksheep]

That's interesting to read,  I think in commercial flocks ewes that malpresent are likely to be marked for cull when it should maybe the ram and not the ewes.

[in the hills]

Interesting.

Could genetics cause that?  How would that work?

Any vets on here?

[SallyintNorth]

That's interesting to read,  I think in commercial flocks ewes that malpresent are likely to be marked for cull when it should maybe the ram and not the ewes.

I doubt that actually.  In a commercial flock it would be fairly evident whether it's the odd ewe (cull her) or a significant proportion of one batch (cull him.)

BH always puts the new tup(s) out first, so we have a good time to assess his/their lambs and lambings before the rest of the boys kick in.  And we keep batches broadly as they were at tupping, so we know what tup a lamb is from.

[farmvet]

how can the sire affect the presentation of the offspring at birth? anyone read any papers on the proposed mechanism? I'm a bit sceptical on this one!

[Slimjim]

Pleased to see your comments Farmvet, because I don't understand how sire genes can affect lamb presentation either. Another mystery to me is the view that the number of lambs per ewe is also down to the ram, when it only needs one of his million bullets to fertilize each egg. It's the number of eggs shed by the ewe that controls lamb numbers isn't it?

[SallyintNorth]

I've learned to be rather more sceptical of academics' theories than I am of farmers' experience , so whether or not there are any scientific studies or learned papers wouldn't make me believe or disbelieve, whereas my experience has been that there's pretty much always something real and true in what 'most farmers say'.  (It's not always obvious, but it's usually there!  Even down to why northern sheep farmers select Mule ewes with bonny faces!)

But speaking as a biologist (which I am by training)...  Since behavioural propensities are inheritable, I don't see why a propensity for a calf or lamb to not line itself up properly in the birth canal couldn't be inheritable.  There could be a deficiency in some system that responds to a signal from the mother, and in 'normal' offspring causes them to orient nose-and-toes first at the point of exit.

[SallyintNorth]

Initially I thought the same, Slimjim - that multiple births could only be about the ewe.

However, here are some ideas I've had about how the ram could have an effect...

• highly motile sperm that reach the egg simultaneously, resulting in more egg-splitting identical twins
• something in the ram's pheromones that stimulates the ewes to produce more eggs
• something in the ram's behaviour that stimulates the ewes to produce more eggs
• something in the ram's behaviour that causes the ewes to be more able to implant and sustain multiple fertilised eggs

We had one BFL tup that was a real patriarch; he didn't just marshal the ewes that were cycling that day, he kept the whole flock together and safe.  I wish I could tell you he produced a higher lambing percentage than other tups but I didn't keep those records, sadly - however, I could see how he maybe could have produced a higher lambing percentage by his assiduous care of his ewes meaning that they were able to ovulate and then implant and sustain multiple eggs.

[Me]

Or his constant bothering meant they couldn't forage as they wished and less implanted so he had a lower lambing percentage! I love the idea that never leaving your farm makes you learn more! Damn I wish I had never left the farm now!!

[SallyintNorth]

Ha, well you could be right, Me!  (I don't think so, though, I'm pretty sure he was a good tup - we bought him as a very much loved ex stock tup from a top local breeder of Mules.)

As to learning more by not leaving the farm... well of course I don't say it isn't good to also read, and to visit other farms and sessions given by the likes of Eblex, and our vet does a pretty good job keeping us all up to date on what's new and current... but for sure, a lot of academics would benefit from an extended period of farm practise.     

[Me]

I am not an academic, but have obviously rubbed shoulders with one or two in my time and its a shame that the term is being used as more or less an insult. Very often good science is misinterpreted or over interpreted by non-academics and reported in the press incorrectly, later giving the impression that the poor old academic was wrong when in fact, he has usually been partly or totally miss-quoted.

[SallyintNorth]

Not sure where you're picking up that the term is being used as an insult...

However, I think there is maybe a general lack of mutual respect between farmers and the more academic / scientific members of the agricultural sector.  It's a shame in both directions - of course there are things farmers can learn from science but there is such a wealth of knowledge out there which is beyond the academics' ken and at which they are prone to turn up their noses.  Not just the academics and scientists of course, it's as much the arrogance of youth as anything else, I'm sure.

Now I have a pretty good degree from a pretty good university, as it happens, but I guess that doesn't show as I don't wear my college scarf when I'm attending sessions given by Defra for farmers... and I am by now resigned to being treated as an academically backward, socially and mentally inferior being by some of the so-called experts fielded to brief us.

(Actually I probably am socially inferior, so I'll let them have that one, lol.)

Such a shame, because the government scientists introduce scheme after scheme after scheme which owe much to the latest academic thinking and show less than lip service to the generations and generations of understanding farming and the countryside which is embodied in so many farmers.  Needless to say, many of these schemes fail to deliver, frequently in ways predicted by the farmers whose input was not sought, or if sought, was largely ignored.