Finn sheep; breeding out of season.

[NachoFarm]

Ok so I know I read it somewhere that Finns are seasonal breeders. Now suddenly I'm hearing (and reading) everywhere that they can and do breed out of season. We had plan to run our ram with our ewes year round. Now what? So besides that general question...

She just had two ram lambs this week. Do I need to be worried about her being bred again already? We don't have anywhere to put the ram that is separate as of right now.

Our breeder told us she knows someone that breeds her Finns twice a year. Is this even possible from a health and management standpoint? Is there a responsible way to do it? We are not warm weather blessed year round so would winter be a big factor?

Can you keep two rams and run them year round? Does this work under any circumstance? I really don't want to keep the ram(s) separate but I don't know how to manage breeding that I can't control.

We are planning on selling at least one of the ram lambs by fall but we weren't sure if we should castrate or not? When do they become mature?

 

[SheepGirl]

Finns are seasonal breeders, but they have a longer season than other breeds. They come into heat 6-8 months of the year.

I know Romanovs (a closely related breed) can come into heat a month after lambing, even while nursing lambs, and become pregnant. This allows them to be bred every 6 months and they can produce 2-4 lambs each time. Breeding two times a year requires exceptional nutritional management & feeding, especially when they have as many babies as they do.

You can keep two rams and keep them with your flock year round, but they will fight and one ram will be the one to breed the majority of the ewes, which may or may not be the ones you want bred by him. But if you are wanting to keep two rams, I would set up another pen. This new pen will house the rams when you do not want them breeding, and then when you do start to breed, put one ram out into the main pen/pasture and keep the other ram in the new ram pen. Then move the ewes to the pen with the ram you want to breed them to.

Again, Romanovs can be sexually mature at 3-4 months of age, so if you don't want a ram to be a ram, then you should castrate him. Finns & Romanovs are very closely related and are both very, very prolific & mature early. As a general rule, you should castrate 9 out of 10 rams born on your farm. Evaluate them for health, growth, production, parent's production, etc, before deciding to keep one a ram or not. Also if you are planning on keeping one as a ram to use him to breed, are you okay with him breeding his mother/sisters? You already have his sire, so do you want to keep another ram of the relatively same genetics on your farm? Or would you rather bring in a new ram for new blood?

 

[NachoFarm]

The thing about the ram lambs that were just born are that they are from a ram we had back in October who died on us so we were considering keeping one of them because he would keep the other rams genetics on our farm. So we would have one of the ram lambs and our ram that we believe bred our other two ewes. Since new Gotland genetics are so hard to come by we thought this would be an easy way to keep things mixed up. We really want to research and thoughtfully plan out line breeding but I know that can be complicated.

So about her getting pregnant...should I be worried RIGHT NOW that this will happen? I don't think we have to knowledge to maintain an "exceptional" management program right now as we're still learning. Until our fence gets fixed and we get our new temporary fence we have no way of separating them. So if they're seasonal breeders when exactly do I have to be concerned about them coming into heat? Is there a time of year that I should separate the rams just to be safe? We want to keep our breeding to October/November ideally.

So if we don't want a ram to be a ram but say he's going to leave for (vegans cover your ears) meat purposes...then should we still castrate him?

 

[NachoFarm]

Sheep Girl, where'd you go on me?! LOL! My ewe could be out there getting pregnant right now!
Then I'll have to send all the extra lambs to you!

 

[SheepGirl]

Sorry, I saw this post yesterday and I meant to reply to it but I guess I closed out of it on accident and forgot!

Keeping one of them a ram should be fine then.

I don't think she will get pregnant now. Maybe when the babies are 1-2 months old. I don't know the exact months Finns come into heat, but I'm thinking August/September to March/April ish.

And if you are going to use a ram lamb for meat, you don't need to castrate him because as far as I know, intact males don't have a different flavor. They grow faster and tend to be heavier muscled than wethers or ewes, but if you're running them with the flock for 6-8 months while they're growing & finishing, they might get a little rambunctious with the ewes and they may breed them. So since you don't have any way to separate an intact meat animal, I would go ahead and castrate him so he doesn't do the job his brother and the other ram are supposed to be doing