# breeding question



## Danner (Apr 25, 2013)

I am starting a dairy flock. I started with 10 katahdin ewes and 1 east friesen ram. They are lambing now. When I go to breed the lambs should I breed again to the ram or would it be better to keep one of the ram lambs to breed back to? Is there enough genetic difference between a ram and his son's genes that it would matter? I am going to keep one of the ram lambs regardless as a companion for the ram. It is just a question of if I breed him or wether him. Thanks.


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## boothcreek (Apr 25, 2013)

I would breed the daughters back to the original ram, its generally better to breed like that then brother to sister(or half siblings).

I breed my ewe lambs back to their sire if they exhibit traits from him I really like, breeding them back gives you a better chance those traits from his side will intensify(in your case I would assume you want the milking ability from him, correct?.


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## Four Winds Ranch (Apr 25, 2013)

X2 ^


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## SheepGirl (Apr 25, 2013)

Danner said:
			
		

> I am starting a dairy flock. I started with 10 katahdin ewes and 1 east friesen ram. They are lambing now. When I go to breed the lambs should I breed again to the ram or would it be better to keep one of the ram lambs to breed back to? Is there enough genetic difference between a ram and his son's genes that it would matter? I am going to keep one of the ram lambs regardless as a companion for the ram. It is just a question of if I breed him or wether him. Thanks.


You can breed daughters back to their fathers (and sons to their mothers) and you can breed half siblings together. You can even breed full siblings together.

I know you didn't ask this BUT if you are going to keep a ram lamb for breeding, choose the ram lamb with the heaviest adjusted weaning weight out of the ewe who raised the heaviest litter. That will tell you which ewe is the heaviest milking one. That's an important trait to select for since you're going to have a dairy flock.


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## Danner (Apr 28, 2013)

Thank you for your information. My main concern with breeding again to the father is I will lose more of the hair sheep traits- parasite resistance and hair loss. I thought if I kept it at a 50/50 hybrid I could maintain some of both breeds. I do like the increased milk production if I breed back to the father. I guess I could breed again to the father and then since I would probably want to change rams in the 3rd generation breed back to a hair sheep ram. Any thoughts?


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## SheepGirl (Apr 28, 2013)

If you bred the father/daughter (which would be 3/4 EF x 1/4 K) to another Katahdin ram, you'd have the same cross as the original pairing - 1/2 EF x 1/2 K.

What might be the best for you is having a 5/8 Katahdin x 3/8 East Friesian animal--just select the ones that shed the best, and ones that have trouble shedding, cull them. It is my understanding that it takes two to three crosses of hair sheep onto wool sheep to produce a good shedding animal. Depending on how hard you cull it might be less than that. Also EFs don't have very much wool to begin with so it will probably be faster. But you can get that 5/8 Katahdin x 3/8 East Friesian by breeding 3/4 K x 1/4 EF stock to 1/2 K x 1/2 EF stock. However, being slightly more than half hair sheep, they should still be okay shedders, but that way you aren't sacrificing too much dairy blood for the shedding abilities.


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