Sheepshape
Herd Master
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2012
- Messages
- 1,706
- Reaction score
- 3,095
- Points
- 373
I have seasonal breeders, so the advice is a little different for seasonal breeders and sheep that breed all year round. My sheep start to come into heat between mid-August and early-October.....responding to shortening day length. As I like my sheep to lamb from mid-March onwards, I count back 147 day (average gestation ) which would take me to October 15th or thereabouts. The ewes who are being put to the tup for the first time (sheepfolk talk for putting a ram in with ewes) will have been born between March and May of the previous year, so are 17-18 months old. An occasional very large ewe lamb from the current year, so about 6 months old, will also 'go to the tup'. These young lambs need to be at least 80% of their expected adult weight or they may suffer with growth stunting.What is the optimal age to first breed a ewe?
In non-seasonal breeders about a year should be fine....and again when they are at least 80% of the expected adult weight (Most will be well over the 80% at a year).
Over here ewes aged 1bout 18months which are going to the tup for the first time are called shearlings (sheared once), hoggets/hogs (sheep between 1 and 2 years old) or gimmers (a ewe which has been sheared once). All these terms get used at sheep sales locally, but they pretty much refer to the same thing.
Ewe lambs are often fertile well before they are old enough not to suffer as a consequence of pregnancy, and ram lambs can be fertile from not much more than 3 MONTHS old.