Empty shearlings at scanning
- Thread starter twizzel
- Start date
I went one step further than that this time... I only gave them chance get tupped in the first cycle, tup was out for 18 days so slightly more but not much... 303 ewes tupped and 40 empty.. hurt a little all those empty’s but hopefully it’s for my own benefit next year and also will cut costs my lambing not dragging on for ever and a day...
First year doing it so might regret it as I normally put tups out for 8 weeks and lambing seems too last forever [emoji24] teasers this time and plenty of Rams on small fields with high stocking rates too try make sure everything got a chance... lots of singles though [emoji22]
Skintagain
Member
- Location
- Perched on the Pennines
You have done well cause you have bought a lot of ewes in if i remember correctly.
- Location
- Fife
Tup has nothing to do with litter size.
Sounds a great system though. What was your tup:ewe ratio? Are you retaining females?
I lambed 180 this time... then bought 40 in with lambs at foot... then 78 shearlings and 50 draft ewes... culled out what had no chance of lambing again and 75% of what was scanned empty was stuff that I should have culled at tupping time too but desprate too build numbers I gave them a chance
I think it might take a couple years too get it right but long drawn out lambings are expensive as hell and soul destroying especially on small numbers... I had 1-100 teaser ratio and then 1-40 ish tup ratio... half the flock is mules too suffolk tups, all there females I’ll retain and the other half is suffolk mules and a texel crosses too texel and beltex I’ll sell all them all, ideally in 3 years time I’ll have 400 suffolk X mules and 200 north country mules...
Global ovine
Member
- Location
- Central Otago NZ
The genetic ability of any ewe, whatever their age, underpins their ability to get pregnant and the number of eggs shed. However heaps of "environmental" influences come into play successively for a pregnancy to occur and the foetal load to be set. These range from compromised embryos (junk), implantation problems such as selenium deficiency, implantation location (where insufficient uterine surface area for placental attachment), to disease (pathogens) etc etc.
Therefore when comparing production data between individuals for traits of low heritability, such as Number of Lambs Born, it so problematic that it is next to useless. That is why such traits need the maths analysis (BLUP) to bring in lifetime records of as many close relatives as possible. Or inspect the lambing records of the dam and the dam of their sire.
Culling a ewe lamb from a line of highly productive females for being empty may be eliminating a good potential ewe just because something outside of her genetics had a bigger influence on the day.
If you have a lot of choice, then cull her, as who is to know why she failed her first exam, a test that others passed. And, a test that is harder for immature ewes to pass than adult ewes.
