Farmers that are planning ahead for their lambing dates may now be selecting which rams they will use for breeding.
There will be many sheep farmers aiming to join their rams to their ewes and ewe lambs to facilitate January – March lambing soon.
A ewe served by a ram on October 1 will be expected to lamb, following a 145-day gestation period, on February 23.
Drystock advisor with Teagasc, James Doran, has provided 10 tips for rams during the mating season to help achieve the best possible scanning rates next December and January.
- Ensure the ram is in good body condition prior to mating (BCS 4.0) as they will lose a lot of weight and eat very little during mating;
- Sperm production takes six to seven weeks. A ram mating a ewe on October 1 will have started producing that sperm in the middle of August;
- A temperature rise of as little as 0.5°C above normal temperature for any reason within that period may be sufficient to render the ram infertile for a period of six to seven weeks (normal body temperature for sheep is 38.3 – 39.9ᵒc or 100.9 -103.8ᵒf). Therefore you should be extremely vigilant of any ram health problems (i.e. pneumonia/lameness etc.) and act fast to correct this prior to mating;
- Antibiotics do NOT affect the fertility of rams;
- For the reasons stated above, using 1 ram alone is high risk;
- Two rams can still result in barren ewes due to the potential of an infertile ram being a ‘blocker ram’ that prevents a fertile ram from mating ewes. Three or more rams is ideal;
- You should have spare rams in case rams get injured, sick or die during the breeding season;
- Rotating rams is also a good idea for smaller flocks where running three or more rams is not possible;
- It is absolutely essential to raddle the rams so that you can keep an eye on how mating is proceeding and identify potential infertility. Start with lighter colours (yellow → orange → green → red → blue → black) and change the colour every 14 days. If a lot of ewes start repeating, suspect that there is a problem with the rams;
- Finally, ram to ewe ratios of 1:40 for mature rams and 1:25 for ram lambs work best.
Ensuring a genotyped ram has been purchased for your flock is an important aspect of participating in the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS).
All applicants will be required to carry out this action within the first three years of SIS participation.
The scheme is currently in it’s second year, but farmers may have chosen to already purchase a genotyped ram.
Applicants will indicate the year in which they will carry out the action when completing their online scheme application form.
Teagasc has advised farmers to check if 2024 is a year you need to purchase a qualifying ram under the SIS.