Today at around 11 AM, I gathered the ewe herd into the pen and I counted the sheep, tagged the lambs, and castrated the ram lambs. Here’s what I found.
Keep in mind that I have a separate ram herd of 7 rams.
- There were 5 ram lambs. I was able to castrate all but one of them.
- There were 9 ewe lambs.
- There were 46 ewes and 1 wether I keep with the ewes.
- Altogether, there were 61 sheep in the ewe herd.
I expected 54 ewes, so I am missing about 8 of them. I’ll have to figure out what happened to all of the missing ones.
I had expected over a hundred lambs this year. I did not get that. I don’t completely understand why, but I assume it was an aggressive breeding schedule combined with weak sheep.
Next year I plan on breeding in January to have lambs in June, probably the best time to have lambs. The ewes should be as strong as they possibly can be at that time of year, and the lambs should receive top-quality colostrum to ensure the maximum health. Going forward I’ll probably stick with this plan. I just don’t see any other way of doing this unless I start feeding and medicating the sheep to keep them alive while aggressively breeding them.
According to my estimates, I should see about 72 lambs next year, and then 83 and then 105 in the following years. The slower growth rate is due to the fact that I can’t breed lambs until they are over a year old,