# Choosing your meat sheep?



## mysunwolf (Oct 22, 2014)

My ram this year was a cull ram of someone else, but he looked decent to me.

My question is: How do you choose who is an excellent ram? I figure that it has to do with: 1) overall soundness, muscling, testes; 2) health, behavior, parasite load; 3) genetics, pedigree; 4) personal preference. But I'm still not getting it! When I browse auction listings or sale pages, I can't tell the difference in rams. One I may think looks really excellent, others will comment that he should be a cull. And the opposite. 

Mostly, I've been looking at Katahdins, which I feel never look as meaty as the wooly meat breeds I've seen. I've thought that maybe this is my trouble, that hair sheep just never get meaty. But the Dorpers have proved me wrong on that front. 

Next year, we will be using a dairy ram, so I'm not sure if the criteria will be the same, but I'd like to use the general meat standards so as to have a good dual-purpose flock.

What do you personally look for when choosing a ram, either from your own flock or an outside flock?


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## secuono (Oct 22, 2014)

Takes time to get an eye for any kind of specialty. I notice that most keep mentioning a thicker rump and straight backs and legs on square ends. But I can't search those meat breeds too much, the terribly short tail dock puts me off so much so that it's on my top list of turn offs for sheep, even if everything else was perfect.  =/ I almost see the no-tail rumps as misshapen, slight dip in them vs sheep with a tail. I'm not sure though if what I'm seeing is actually the no tail/muscle attachment and pulling oddly to cause the dip or just no muscle would be there regardless of a tail being present. 
Facebook has sheep groups, they might have a post somewhere that people have posted their top rams and noted what makes them great and what doesn't. If not...I think I might just ask!
Going to shows should help figure it out, too. With getting a more real life experience than just pictures online.


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## BrownSheep (Oct 22, 2014)

In my opinion sheep are something you really have to get your hands on to judge. Yes, you can get a basic idea from photos and data but being able to feel out the muscle really helps. This mainly stems from livestock judging in highschool. 

Remember there is no perfect ram. It's all subjective. What is perfect for me may be the last thing on earth you want breeding your ewes and vice versa.  

I kind of feel the same way about hair sheep  . I'm not a huge fan of the hair breeds but if I found an animal I liked and met what I want my animals to look like I wouldn't hesitate to breed it. 

I am a bigger is better person. I like tall wide animals. I look for 

straight backs,
good hooves ( I don't mind if they are a little over grown but you can tell if its going to be a problem)
Proper leg alignment. ( Doesn't matter the size, if the foundation isn't sound they'll break down)
Muscling- An animal can be thin and still be well muscled. You just have do decide if the thinness is an issue with the animal or with the management.
Testes...I have read some study that related teste size to fertility. I'll try to find it.


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## norseofcourse (Oct 22, 2014)

I found something last year that you might find helpful.

http://www.northern-maine-icelandic-sheep.com/compare1.html

It's Icelandic sheep, but what I liked about it was it had a variety of sheep pictures, and comments about the good (and bad) points of different body parts.  There are four pages total.  It really helped me start to see what to look for.


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## mysunwolf (Oct 23, 2014)

Ha, I went and joined some Facebook groups for Katahdin and hair sheep breeders  That was an excellent suggestion secuono, there are quite a few posts and discussions about how to identify a good meat sheep. 

BrownSheep, I like short wide sheep, but I can go for tall as well as long as they've got the bulk. I also prefer smaller sheep because I can barely wrestle my 120-150# Katahdins onto their butts! My problem comes with the tall wiry sheep that don't put on muscle because, funny, their lambs don't seem to put on muscle. Thin but well muscled... you've lost me there. Can't bring that image to mind, except maybe in the case of a heifer I had once. 

norse, that is a really nice link, I think it would be helpful for all sheep breeders, and maybe for meat goat breeders as well. 

I went out and tried to "judge" the ewes in the flock today. I reaffirmed one of my cull decisions and reversed another. With the ewe lambs it's harder to tell, but I will say I can get a general sense of who's coming along nicely (not just growth rate) and who needs to go. I think.


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## Bossroo (Oct 24, 2014)

Google ... "Dorper sheep" and look at their  photos for a very good representatives of what a shorter meat ram looks like. As for placing a sheep onto their behinds ask a person who makes a living from sheep , or  a publication on sheep management  from a Animal Husbandry Department of an Agricultural University.  I have placed many a mature ram from 250 - 350 lbs. on their posterior in seconds as I worked with a herd of over 100 rams at a University Ag. Dept. on ram fertility research project.


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## SheepGirl (Oct 24, 2014)

IMO, you're right. Hair sheep aren't as meaty as the traditional wooled meat breeds. Even Dorpers... most Dorpers I've seen are mainly fat; I have yet to be impressed by the breed. You can tell when animals are fat because they have very deep bellies, fat deposits around the top of their tails, and you can never tell in photos where their ribs end and their hips starts. For example, take these two photos:






At first glance, this looks like a nice Dorper ram. But when you look further, there is no muscle definition in the hind end, you can't see where his ribs end, he has a fat chest, and a deep belly.

I will show you another photo of what appears to be a heavily muscled ram, this one is one that I bred and owned but sold two years ago, but he's just fat (look at the fat deposit above his tail). He does have muscling (you can tell because he also had a really thick neck) but a lot of it was masked by fat, which a lot of people mistakenly call muscle.






Now here's a lean, but muscled ram:

Look at how wide his hip is. You can also tell he is not in perfect condition because you can still see his spine a little.





Here's his butt, nice and thick. He was also a solid ram when you touched him. No jiggliness of fat.





And here he is on a side view; you can see where his loin is (in between his ribs and hip), you can see the muscle definition in his derriere, and also the muscling on his forearm.





Now the above Texel ram is not the most heavily muscled Texel ram there is; he's average to maybe just a little bit above average. But he does have more muscle than a lot of other sheep.

I have yet to see a lean Dorper (in person or in a photo). When I do, then I can more comfortably evaluate the amount of muscle they have.

The pictures you see here are of sheared sheep. If you are evaluating a sheep in wool, you need to get your hands on them (well, you should put your hands on a sheep you're going to buy regardless) and feel for the muscling in the leg and how long and deep their loin is. You're not going to get much muscle out of a dairy ram. So don't expect a whole lot. But buy the heaviest muscled ram there if you have options.

However, not only do I look at the muscling of an animal (I sell meat sheep so I want my sheep to have meat on them!), but I also look at the production:
type of birth, internal parasite history (of the individual and the flock), lambing history of the dam, etc.


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## purplequeenvt (Oct 24, 2014)

We raise wool sheep so we have different criteria for picking our breeding rams than a meat breed uses, but there are similarities. Good conformation and breed character are probably the most important aspects (breed character obviously doesn't matter if you are crossbreeding) for us, but we also look at size (is this ram the right size for his age and breed), length and depth of the loin, and muscling. 

We try to use rams that will compliment or improve on the ewes they are bred to.


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## Bossroo (Oct 24, 2014)

I would suggest that one should study progeny carcass competition test results and one would find that the Dorper ( a much more recent kid on the block for PROFESSIONAL  shepherds in the US as well as in Australia and New Zealand ) carcasses will compete very favorably at the top ( and even beat the other top meat sire breeds)  when compared to the Southdown, Suffolk,  Hampshire , and Dorset which  are the traditional top grade carcass competition winners.  I have bred quite a few Purebred Suffolk rams for yearling ram sales, so I just may have a clue as to the quality of a ram as well as what quality of lamb carcass that they produce.  The Dorper, originally developed in Africa , being a fairly new imported breed to the US.  Curious, I went to a number of ranches to see how they fare  under range conditions as well as their crossbred progeny.  I then went to  several county/ State fairs  to see them in conformation judging competitions ... I must say that I was very impressed.


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