Greetings fellow shepherds. Been busy with lambing the past few weeks. This was our first real lambing season with new ewes, lots of twins, and even some triples. Last year we bought our first 5 experiences ewes and managed to get them lambed out successfully with the operators manual in our hand almost all the time. We were successful with the flushing, gestations and lambing of all the additional ones that we bought, plus the ewe lambs of our first crop last year.
Our only concern is of course lamb size in our "1st timers". Of the 6 ewe lambs that we had, we had 5 sets of twins. Rather exciting, but some of the ram lambs were a little on the tight side. Our ewe lambs were various crosses of Suffolk, Hamp and Dorset, plus a couple of PB Dorset. The sire of the new lambs was a Dorset. Lamb sizes of the whole herd were in the 4.5 to 5kg, with the largest single lamb being 6kg. Next year we are looking for smaller lambs in our replacement females and was wondering which breed we should be looking for. We are really happy with the Dorset ram that we have for the experienced females, just want something a little "safer" for our "1st timers".
We have our own idea of breed, but would really value your opinions.
Thank you in advance
Our only concern is of course lamb size in our "1st timers". Of the 6 ewe lambs that we had, we had 5 sets of twins. Rather exciting, but some of the ram lambs were a little on the tight side. Our ewe lambs were various crosses of Suffolk, Hamp and Dorset, plus a couple of PB Dorset. The sire of the new lambs was a Dorset. Lamb sizes of the whole herd were in the 4.5 to 5kg, with the largest single lamb being 6kg. Next year we are looking for smaller lambs in our replacement females and was wondering which breed we should be looking for. We are really happy with the Dorset ram that we have for the experienced females, just want something a little "safer" for our "1st timers".
We have our own idea of breed, but would really value your opinions.
Thank you in advance
Comment