I still have six of 34 ewes which did not lamb. Impatient to know their status, I did blood draws on them and sent them in for laboratory testing.
I actually suspected none of these ewes were pregnant. Five of them don’t look big enough to be near-delivery pregnant as they should be by now. The six ewe looks gigantic, but is also very over-conditioned. I wondered if she’d just grown obese over the winter. But, it turns out she is pregnant, along with a two-year-old. This is good and bad.
Backup Breedings
I run rams with the ewes all winter. I start with a controlled breeding cycle where ewes and rams are paired-up in matings of my choice, in separate corrals. Their progeny will all be of known pedigree so I can register them; and I know all the due dates since the rams wear marking harnesses. But once that’s over and every ewe has been marked during that three-week fertility window, I toss all the sheep back together in a mob for the winter. This makes feeding easiest, for one. And two, if a ewe were to lose a pregnancy in the first few months, she has a chance to re-breed. Then the year is not wasted. This is the plan, anyway.
There are some drawbacks to these late-breds, however. I won’t know who the sires are. And the ewes’ feeding program gets all messed up if they breed late. The fat ewe worries me, she’s essentially been living high on the hog for her entire pregnancy, which is bad. Ewes need to stay lean for the first 3-4 months, and only be put on the big gain in the last third of pregnancy. Her backline looks like a tabletop, I could put a full setting of china on there! I bet she’s got some mighty big babies in there, and she risks a difficult birth. And I have no idea when that birth will happen such that I can keep a closer eye on her. The second late-bred ewe I actually did observe getting re-bred, and noted the date. So I expect she’ll lamb around the 4th of July. She’s also carrying a lot of condition, but not as extreme.
Late lambs also mean I’ll have to hustle and wean them early, so I can get the ewes back into the schedule for breeding in November. The lambs will be out of synch with the rest of the butchering cycle, or available as weaned breeding stock during winter when fewer people are shopping for them. But still, late lambs are better than feeding an open ewe an entire year! I’ll take what I can get!
June 3, 2012 at 4:59 pm
I had an open ewe that I rebred and I hope she is pregnant as of about 5 weeks ago. She is still with the ram just to make sure. I would like to breed her this fall with my other two ewes as you are planning. How soon can I wean her assuming she does give me an October baby? I think I would probably be breeding in October and that seems too soon. Maybe i should just delay winter breeding a couple of months to give her baby more time? Since I only have three ewes, I’d like to keep,them on the same schedule if possible.
June 3, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Claire, a lot of people wean at 60 or 90 days. You can get by with weaning even earlier, though I think you don’t necessarily get as good of growth on lambs that way. I don’t think nursing necessarily precludes going back into heat, and the pressure of the shortening days of fall may encourage her to breed even if her lamb is not yet weaned. If she has twins, it might be hard to get her back into condition quickly after breeding-back, but if she has a single, then it’s probably no big deal. A lot of sheep don’t want to go into heat in these off-seasons, so the fact that she bred now probably implies she is very fertile and may breed almost any time of year.
You could try to keep the ram(s) out of sight and smell all summer, too, so when you do want her to breed, the novelty of ram introduction will help kick her into heat.
June 5, 2012 at 2:52 am
I am so happy my ewe lambed early according to the records I got when I bought her. She had them during the day in the barn(her choice) and when I got there in early evening I wondered why she looked like she had black legs, and then I realized her lambs were being hidden by the high grass! They are so cute and I am so excited, twins, ewe and ram. Now when I can figure out how to include a photo you will get to view them too!
June 5, 2012 at 3:48 am
JEL- congratulations, those are my favorite kind too, where I show up and all the work is done! I don’t think WordPress supports uploading photos into the comment section, otherwise would love to see them!
June 21, 2012 at 8:46 pm
I am still waiting for my other ewe to lamb. She is BIG and just a yearling herself. I think I see a small milk bag starting. This bred of sheep is so new to me after having North Country Cheviots and some other crosses for over 30 years. I find it so thrilling to have lambs in this fine weather, grass tall, and no mucky barn etc. I have a lot to learn about this bred. When my shearer came to sheer my old flock he just gave a look to my new ewe and babes and shook his head and said “soon no work for me here”…..
June 22, 2012 at 2:40 am
JEL- oh my goodness, coming from Cheviots, I am guessing you are going to think Katahdins are very zen- so casual and level-headed.
June 22, 2012 at 9:48 pm
My North Country Cheviots are not the small Cheviots, but were good sized and excellent mothers with good flocking. Also mixed in are the Dorset breed.
I love my old ewes but oh my heart in truly in a flutter over my new Katahdins.
I am picking up another yearling ewe from a breeder here in Oregon, Karen Kenagy. It is like Christmas all over again!
June 22, 2012 at 11:44 pm
JEL- my observation of either kind of Cheviot is that their temperaments run pretty hot-blooded. I used to trial my border collies a lot, and it always seemed like the Cheviots at trials were the ones that would crash into fences and get a little nutty in a stressful environment. Katahdins are so mellow by comparison. Sometimes I forget ’til I visit other people’s farms and see their sheep giving them grief, or hear people talk about bad behavior that they are just used to dealing with, like murderous rams and stressy ewes, and then I so appreciate mine and how easy they are to handle. How fun that you’re getting a ewe from Karen, I have a few from her lines as well, some of my best!