[FiB]

Great lambing so far (thanks to all you guys on hand to answer Q's), 5 ewes to go..... BUT for someone who was hoping to expand flock from this lambing.... bit of a bummer the ratio of ram/ewe lambs.  I know gender is down to the sperm (at  least I assume it is the same as humans?!) so do  some rams produce more of one than the other or is it a complete throw of the dice?  Different ram next year? 
 
OUt of interest - are ram lambs worth less (assuming I dont have any shining example to sell as rams) than ewe lambs at meat age (given the latter would be in a different market)?

[twizzel]

I wouldn't have thought they were worth less unless they were smaller or had ram taint? we have a mixture of ram and ewes (think 7 rams... well they are wethers now, and 5 ewes) this year. Last year we had 3 ewes and 3 wethers and they all killed out at similar weights. Do yours go direct to slaughterhouse or do you sell through market? If market and they weren't quite finished you may get slightly less but for finished lambs I can't see there would be much of a difference, but stand to be corrected!
 

[SteveHants]

No; ram lambs make the same at mart as ewe lambs down here - and if you leave them entire they tend to finish more quickly - they do seem to make less than gimmer ewe lambs though if you keep them on that long.

[Susannah]

I too was wanting to increase my flock of Hebrideans but guess what...8 out of 10 are ram lambs!
I'm afraid I can't advise on meat value but would be interested to know the answer.
(The Jacobs were the other way round, 1 to 5 thank goodness) I had been wondering if the weather or water or time of year the tup went in made a difference. My Heb tup escaped and joined the girls late September and the one who can't of been caught first time round produced one of the ewes. The Jacob tup went in late at the end of November. I will have to think harder to remember what the weather was like on both occasions!
I guess if there was a reason people would have figured it out by now but it's always fun making up hypothesis.

[FiB]

well the plan was to eat the boys (us plus familly and friends) and keep the girls.... but we dont have THAT many family and friends!!!  The boys are entire and we should have enough grass (just) to do without creep and finish them on good grass (hay aftermath)...  (I'm guessing Oct/Nov?).
 

[Remy]

That's funny, I wanted more ram lambs this year to go to market but got mostly ewe lambs! 
I've never had entire ram lambs as I castrate them and they go to market with the ewes, there isn't much difference in weight of those who go to market - sometimes the wethers are slightly larger but not by much.  I've never sent entire ram lambs to market.


Some years I get more ewes and sometimes more rams, so I guess my ram isn't leaning one way or the other!  Maybe see how you go next year and then make a decision on the ram ..

[OhLaLa]

Having had a frisky young ram lamb get in with the girls and start early, we always castrate now so no accidents happen.
Weight wise, not much difference between them, no danger of ram taint, and no worry about ewes covered by any lad apart from the designated husband.
 
 

[Anke]

Well my Shetland tup produced 8 males and only 3 females this year, he's new to me so no idea if that's normal for him. All boys ringed this year again, it just makes life easier with the smaller breeds over winter. Looks we will eat quite a bit of hogget/mutton next year...
The big boy had a nearly even split. No triplets at all this year, so thats great , but a few gimmers/shearlings had small twins rather than good sized singles...
 
 

[Marches Farmer]

Very high number of ram lambs common this year, according to our vet - yet another consequence of the weather ....?

[Foobar]

I read somewhere (no idea where now) that the male female ratio is dependent on the environment at or before tupping time.  If there is lots of food available and the environment is comfortable then it's in the interest of the sheep to have mainly (and this is the bit I can't remember!!!) one particular sex of lambs.  If there is little food and the environment is poor then its better to have more of the other.
Something to do with increasing the gene pool .. I think it was more rams if the environment is good as the result is a flock with a wider gene pool which helps the flock increase in size in order to make use of the plentiful resources.  And more girls if it's bad as that means that more lambs will be born and so, based on the assumption that the mortality will be high, there is more chance of more lambs surviving.


This could all be total nonsense though .  And if it's true it's probably the environmental factors of more than one year that get taken into account.


I had 62% ewe lambs this year.  Previous year was 50-50, year before that was 70% boys.  All with different rams though.  I'll be using the same ram next year so I'll be interested to see if I get a similar %.

[FiB]

yes most of mine (also shearlings) have had smallish twins... I was expecting more singles.. but hey ho as long as they are healthy .
 
 

[NLL]

18 ram lambs and 4 girl lambs, not what I wanted but they are all well.

[plumseverywhere]

Last year, everyone I know kidding had a 90% or above ram season!
Could it be weather dependent?
If I'd known about the tight pants sooner I'd have bought T some - we had 4 daughters 

[cluckyclaire]

We had an even split - 4 of each. Unfortunately lost 2 of the boys to watery mouth tho so now the numbers are lop sided!!

[FiB]

18 ram lambs and 4 girl lambs, not what I wanted but they are all well.

pretty much same as us.