[Jacob-list] ram lambs

[Debbie Bennett]

We've had five breeding years here and I've noticed a couple of trends. 
First time mothers tend to have rams lambs. Young rams have given me 
more ram lambs. I've had a lot more ram lambs born every year, except 
the year I used a six year old ram. That year, we had 13 ewe lambs and 
only 3 ram lambs.
Debbie Bennett
Feral Fibre Farm
Oakland, Oregon
On Jan 25, 2004, at 9:37 AM, Mary Hansson wrote:

> Neal---
>  
> What is the maximum a ram could handle in a given 2 week period?  I 
> would say that there are very few flocks represented on this list that 
> would be anywhere NEAR the middle or high end of whatever that number 
> would be----which should leave all of us with an excess of ewe lambs 
> over ram lambs in all years. 
>  
> How many people are using rams that are even 5 years old???  Very few 
> rams seem to reach the age of 7-8 years, and the ones older than that 
> are extremely rare.  I have been blessed to have had 3 of them here.
>  
> There is another theory that as a ram ages, he will produce more ram 
> lambs in an effort to re-stock the population with something that will 
> reproduce lots of his genetics (ie--a good ram). 
>  
> I can't saw we saw that with the lambs born in the MD group to those > 
> 10 year old rams.  Noble was about even last year in his 9 or 10 lambs 
> he produced with something like 5 ram lambs out of the group.  Since 
> he was pictured as an adult in a spring 1991 picture, he had to have 
> been at least 13 last spring when he died if not 14.....
>  
> Pan produced 3 ram lambs and 0 ewe lambs the year I used him 
> here----and he was about 8 at that time???
>  
> Sir Hugh was 10 and produced ewes in the ewes owned by other breeders 
> and produced rams in the ewes that I had kept.....which goes to prove 
> Murphy's law and nothing more.
>  
> I can't remember how old Sir James is, but he isn't THAT old.  It will 
> be interesting to see what he produces in the 2-3 ewes he wound up 
> with here.
>  
> Mary Ellen
>
> Neal and Louise Grose <nlgrose at yadtel.net>wrote:
> Somewhere I recall a theory (but don't remember where) that nature 
> tended to favor higher proportion of ewe lambs where the flock is 
> small, and more ram lambs as the flock increases in size. That would 
> be valid in our flock in years past, and makes some sense in an 
> evolutionary way. There is some difference in the 'male' and 'female' 
> sperm in relative vitality in certain situations. (Like frequency of 
> "use".)
>  
> Neal Grose
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Betty Berlenbach
> To: jacob-list at jacobsheep.com
> Sent:Sunday, January 25, 2004 7:09 AM
> Subject:[Jacob-list] ram lambs
>
> Nope!  I've never had a year with more ram lambs than ewe lambs.  I 
> think it's due to the acidity of the soil, though some experts laugh 
> at me.  LEt 'em laugh!  Once, I had equal numbers, but generally, my 
> ewe lambs far outnumber ram lambs. I have noticed that with different 
> rams, there are consistently more daughters than sons, so maybe I just 
> lucked out in rams a few times!  (Watch, this year, for the first time 
> in 9 years, I'll have all ram lambs.  Knock on wood, no!) Betty in 
> Vermont.
>
>
> Mary Ellen Hansson, MEd, RD, LDN
> ISeeSpots Farm
> Jacob Sheep: Lambs, adults, wool
> www.iseespots.com
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