[chonty]

Hi all

I put my boy in with the girls (all pedigree whitefaced woodlands) on the 5/10 looking for an early March start of lambing. Well the ladies obviously weren't ready to play ball as he has only just started marking them. so far 1 today and 1 yesterday. So my plan was to change the colour of the raddle at 17 days to catch the ewes next cycle.

My question is do I still change the raddle today regardless that he's only just started marking the girls?

If it helps there are only 5 ewes, never had this happen as I've never tried to tup this early and it's my first year with woodies. Ive been told hill breeds are late to come into season though.

Any thoughts would be most welcome

[Foobar]

Mine went in on the 5th Oct too, and I changed my raddle colour yesterday, but all but my some of my ewe-lambs have been marked already.  I would would change your colour yes,  if only to ensure that those two aren't re-marked.


Even hill breeds should come into season in October, but maybe it depends on your local conditions.  Mine are welsh hill sheep, but I'm in the lowlands of south wales.

[chonty]

Many thanks foobar, yes I should have changed yesterday but working and on call all night! Well I can't imagine conditions would be much different I am lowland herefordshire so we'll see.

[ZaktheLad]

I put my ram in on 5th October too with the 5 ewes I am planning to sell in-lamb.  He has served all of them too and I changed the raddle colour at the weekend.  Keeping my fingers crossed that they all hold. 

Your ewes may have just missed their cycle first time but hopefully will all come in to season around the same time in the next few days 

[Tim W]

Q Why do you use a raddle?
A; so you know when the ewes have been tupped

If you only have 5 ewes you must know them individually so you can write down the day they get marked, then when they are all marked change the raddle to see if you get any repeats

[mowhaugh]

We use a slightly different approach:

No raddle for first 6 days
Yellow raddle for next 6 days
Red raddle for next 6 days
Black raddle after that.

This allows us to split sheep for housing - when we are due to start lambing, only plains and yellows would be brought in (either into a shed, or a field rather than hill according to the breed) for the first week, followed by reds and blacks as time goes on, and also to adapt when their feeding ration would be increased according to when they are due to lamb.

[VSS]

There is no right or wrong time to change a raddle crayon - it depends why you are using one.

[Foobar]

If you know what day those two were marked, change the raddle colour 16 days later than the last one?

[chonty]

Many thanks for all your replies, tis true I use a raddle so I know when ewes have been served just got a bit bogged down in the 17 day turn thing. So I did change the raddle and have bought a third colour just in case. These are definitely hobby sheep!

I think next year I'll be sponging!

Can I just say how jealous I am of all yous with your ewes having been served

[Marches Farmer]

Our tup stays in for only 19 days to keep lambing tight.  All the ewes have their number marked on the side.  I just walk around the field once a day and note the new paint jobs so I know roughly what order they'll lamb in.

[SallyintNorth]

We've had tups out with a couple of batches since 20th Sept but nothing really happened for more than two weeks, and then only one or two until the weather turned about 10 days ago.  Clearly our ewes don't think it's right to have sex until Autumn kicks in!

We're in cold  wet  north Cumbria, and these are mainly Texel X, Charollais X commercial sheep out with a Dutch Texel and a Texel tup.  My primitives haven't come a-tupping yet.

We rudd the tups when they first go out so the first few tupped get marked.  Then we rudd again with a different colour when we switch the tups over.  Our sheep lamb outside, we only bring them in if it looks as though they'll lamb into really cold wet weather.

We get them scanned, sometimes the whole flock and sometimes just certain groups - first-timers, earlies, for instance - and the scanner can give us an indication of any that look 'soon' and any that look 'very late'. 

If I had only 5, I would use one colour on the tup, note down the numbers/names and dates as the ewes got tupped.  Change the colour 16 days after the first ewe was tupped to check that all have held.

[VSS]

Our tup stays in for only 19 days to keep lambing tight. 

Same here.