Teresa and Mike Lambing Thread Winter 2019 Part2

Mike CHS

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We put in a fairly full day today. We moved the senior ewes and their lambs from their field so we could check them out and give the last CDT shot to their lambs. We moved the ewes on to some fresh grass that has been idle for a couple of months and moved the lambs to a holding pen for a couple of weeks to get the ewes to start drying up. I think most of the ewes were ready to wean since they haven't called for the lambs hardly at all. The lambs on the other hand are loud enough that we already called the neighbor at the top of the hill to let them know we weren't torturing our sheep. Most of the lambs are in really good condition but we will fatten them up for the next couple of weeks and then take the rams to market. A few of the ewe lambs are going to be culled at the same time.
 

Mike CHS

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Teresa was updating our files with the latest lamb weights. The smallest (youngest) is 54 pounds and the remainder are from 55 to 78 pounds with most being a little over 65 days old. The biggest ram lamb is out of Wild Thang and is the 78 pounder. He was 13.7 pounds when he was born so we are thinking of offering him as a commercial ram. He is going to be huge.
 

misfitmorgan

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My only thought for so many colored lambs this year is because you bred back to Ringo with his daughters. As far as the senior ewes throwing colors no idea. I know white is dom and color is ress.
So if Ringo is W(white Dom) c(color recessive)
and the Senior Ewe was WW(white Dom)
Which looks like this
upload_2019-4-8_8-1-44.png

50% White lambs
50% White lambs with recessive color gene
So then you breed Ringo to his daughters and it looks like this
upload_2019-4-8_8-3-37.png

25% White lambs
50% White lambs with recessive color gene
25% colored lambs

So basically you are winning the lamb lottery this year. There are other factors though like dilute genes(aka most "blue" animals carry a dilute gene) but this is the general idea of what is happening. Also if you breed those cc lambs to a Wc ram you will get this
upload_2019-4-8_8-7-18.png

50% White with recessive color gene
50% colored lambs
If you breed to a WW ram...
upload_2019-4-8_8-10-19.png

100% White with recessive color gene

So lets hope Max is Wc :lol:

Wild things ram lamb should be a cc(he was colored if i recall right?)
 

Roving Jacobs

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White spotting is different than the color patterns, just to make things even more confusing. My jacobs are technically dominant black with white spots, not agouti white with black spots. You can have a patterned sheep but not be able to see it because of all the white spotting they have. Also most sheep (jacobs excluded) don't have dilute blue, they have dilute brown aka moorit. "Blue" sheep are agouti pattern blue. Genetics is fun!
 

misfitmorgan

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Mike posted a picture of Maxwell and he has brown spots. Next years lambs ought to be some spotty babies!

Awesome that means he will have the double recessive and which will make all lambs get one recessive color gene....actually ringo has that black spot so he should be cc.
Ringo cc
Ewe WW
would be 100% White with recessive color
Ringo cc
Ewe Wc
would be 50/50 colored and white w/color gene
Senior ewes could be either, but any lamb that shows color should be cc which means further breeding with Max a cc would produce all colored lambs from any colored ewe.

White spotting is different than the color patterns, just to make things even more confusing. My jacobs are technically dominant black with white spots, not agouti white with black spots. You can have a patterned sheep but not be able to see it because of all the white spotting they have. Also most sheep (jacobs excluded) don't have dilute blue, they have dilute brown aka moorit. "Blue" sheep are agouti pattern blue. Genetics is fun!

:lol: I was trying to save Mike from agoti or spotting since those throw a snag in the whole works.
 
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