Ten Commandments for Raising Healthy Sheep

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IV. CULL THE WORST ANIMALS

If you hope to develop and maintain a really crackerjack flock, you'll have to keep only the best of your lambs and cull—by the simple process of adding some tasty meat to your dinner table—the least impressive critters. Be sure, of course, to keep the ewe lambs (most young rams will be marketed as meat animals) from mothers that are good nursers... that look and feel the healthiest... that produce two offspring almost every year... and that bear the lambs which come closest to reaching 100 pounds in 100 days. Cull the poor producers and—since a ewe can only be expected to breed well for about five to seven years—eliminate the older females, too.

V. BE AWARE OF YOUR ANIMALS' CYCLES

Good flocktenders know the seasonal and lifetime cycles of all their ovine critters: mothers, offspring, and fathers.

EWES: Most female sheep begin their heat cycles during the period of declining daylight that stretches from August to December (although some breeds, like Dorset and Ramboulett, can mate all year round). Many of your ewes won't have an estrus period until they're yearlings. Some "precocious" females, on the other hand, will be early maturers... and you can successfully breed such ewes in their first fall season.

During mating season, the females will be "receptive" for about 36 hours out of every 14 to 19 days, but the lamb-bearers show almost no external signs of being in heat (only the ram knows for sure). You can improve the overall fertility of your ewes if you start "flushing" all the future mothers—by giving them extra feed—two weeks before breeding season. To do so, put the critters on lush bluegrass pasture or provide a daily "bonus" ration of one or two pounds of grain.

LAMBS: Babies are generally born from 145 to 150 days after the date of conception, and weaned when they reach about five months of age. (Youngsters who are eating hay and grain, however, can be separated from their mothers when they're no more than two or three months old.) The youthful gambolers will reach maturity at five to seven months of age.

RAMS: Some lusty young males will be capable of breeding by the time they're two or three months old, and such fast developers can be mated with about 20 ewes during their first "season". Yearling studs—or older rams—can service as many as 25 to 35 ewes annually... and should continue to be vigorous breeders for at least six to eight years.

Like ewes, rams ought to be "flushed" with extra victuals from about two weeks before breeding season until mating activity is over for the year. A two- or three-pound daily grain supplement should suffice for the "woolly womanizers". However, don't let any rams become overly fat: Obese stud critters may become infertile and refuse to breed. Also, as an additional impotence preventive, shear the wool from your rams' scrotums 30 to 45 days before the onset of the warm-weather breeding season (temperatures in excess of 80°F can cause short-term sterility in rams, and such a clipping will help to keep the animals' reproductive organs cool).

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