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« Last post by Rosemary on January 12, 2026, 07:52:08 am »
This is our experience. If you plan to have 15-20 breeding ewes, depending on the breed and your system, you may also have ewe lambs, tups and wether / tup lambs.
For the period of tupping, you'll need to keep your ewe lambs seperate from the breeders and for some of the year, you'll need to keep you tup and wether companion seperate from the ewes. WE used to take the tup out after five weeks, but put him back in once the ewes were scanned in lamb (when he was effectively redundant and could do no harm) and leave him in until midsummer.
One of the reasons we had Ryelands was that male lambs were ready to kill at 6 months, so basically went straight from the ewe - we didn't have to over winter any, so didn't castrate. If it's a slower finishng breed, you will have castrates over the winter.
Some folk like to seperate ewes carrying multiple lambs from singles, so the multiple bearing get extra feed in the six weeks before lambing, and it is good practice. At that time, we used to put the single bearing ewes and the ewe lambs together and leave the tup and wether wth the twin bearers.
The point I'm making is that you may need to manage small groups of sheep, made up of different individuals, so it won;t be 15-20 animals in one group all the time.
What's your land like in wnter? In my experience, that's more of a determining factor than summer stocking. Our land floods in winter some years and that was terribly stressful. We put in an area of hard standing where we could feed the sheep.
I saw what I thought was a great idea, if you can manage it, where there was a central handling area with the grazing fields going off it, like a pie chart or spokes on a wheel. The handling facilities wee at the hub, so to change fields, the sheep came to the hub, then went out to a new feield. They were always keen to come in, becasue they thought it meant new grass, even if it was actually worming or foot trimming.
We have 10 acres of grazing and ran about 12 - 15 Ryeland breeding ewes. We divided our 5 acre field into four, plus 1 acre paddock and a two acre paddock plus an orchard and odd bits here and there. We also had away grazing, so they all went away for the summer to let our grass recover.
The way we divided the 5 acre field - like a cross - meant that if we had to bring them in from the furthest paddock, they had to come through one with new grass, at which point they lost interest in cooperatiing, So bear that in mind in planning your fencing.
Not sure if that answers your questions, but hope it helps anyway.
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