Are these twins to young to breed? Pics

[boykin2010]

I have two twin ewes that were born on march 16 this year. They were born to a yearling ewe, so the lambs have always been kind of small. I am getting ready to breed all my other ewes and ewe lambs that are big enough to breed. I dont know what to do about these two though. I noticed them still nursing today ( i know they shouldve been weaned but i dont have anywhere to put them. ) I am stuck between a rock and hard place now. I can either wait longer for them to mature and prolong the breeding another month on ALL ewes or breed them now and hope by the time they deliver they will big enough to lamb successfully. Here is a picture of them taken about 3 weeks ago so they have a grown a little but not much. That is their mom standing next to them. Please let me know what to do! Thank you

 

[goodhors]

I am going to say they are too young to breed. Will only be seven months old if you breed next month.
You will have more lambs just like them next year. The ewe lambs will always be a bit puny if bred, since they
had to share nutrients with their young mother and now their developing fetus', who also will be short-changed
at birth and the future. I seriously doubt that any of them are going to be your best sheep.

You may just want to put these 3 up for sale, mother and lambs, let them go. Mother looks unthrifty,
on fairly nice looking pasture. Though having such older lambs could be a bit of a drain on her. What
she produced, how she looks herself, doesn't make me think of her as "good to excellent" stock for
breeding again. Sometimes culling such animals out, is actually saving you money not feeding them.
They are not on schedule with your other flock, sounds like she and lambs are just a pain in smooth working
of your system.

You could perhaps use their sale price to buy some wire panels and make pens for weaning lambs next season!

Ewe lambs fall bred here are older with late Dec or Jan birthdays, when they go in with the ram. Some folks just
plan on later lambing time in breeding the ewe lambs separate, after the experienced mothers. This lets the
ewe lambs be older, more developed before expecting them to carry a baby well. Our friends breed for the Easter
market, show lambs to sell to kids early in spring, so they want early births, well developed lambs to sell at weaning.
They do feed lamb feed to get good growth, have them eating well when sold or those kept for flock replacements.

Your choice to breed, not breed or sell. If they were mine, I would go the hard route and sell if I knew they had been well
taken care of with food and worming and still are so puny looking. "Thrifty" is an old term that means animal needs
minimal feed, on good grass, STILL does a good job raising plump, healthy babies, stays looking good herself. This
kind of animal is profitable to own, have around.

 

[SheepGirl]

If they are at least 2/3 of their mature weight, I would say it's safe to breed them.

Mother looks unthrifty, on fairly nice looking pasture...doesn't make me think of her as "good to excellent" stock for breeding again.

boykin2010, body condition score this ewe. Since she is still feeding her lambs, she should be at around a two, maybe a 1.5 since being a yearling with twins.

goodhorse, commercial sheep breeders (which boykin2010 may or may not be) value a ewe lamb that can breed, especially if they twin. Being able to raise them to weaning, as this ewe has demonstrated, is a MAJOR plus. It's valued because it's an economical trait that leads to higher profit over the lifetime of the ewe. If she were in my flock, I would definitely keep her for breeding, as well as her lambs.

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

Agreed that if they are about 2/3 of adult weight then go ahead and breed them. They look ok to me. And they are certainly bigger than the sheep we ended up bottle feeding. She won't be ready to breed until next year and she was born in early March. Though she's doing great on just pasture which I'm thrilled with.

 

[goodhors]

If they are at least 2/3 of their mature weight, I would say it's safe to breed them.

Mother looks unthrifty, on fairly nice looking pasture...doesn't make me think of her as "good to excellent" stock for breeding again.

boykin2010, body condition score this ewe. Since she is still feeding her lambs, she should be at around a two, maybe a 1.5 since being a yearling with twins.

goodhorse, commercial sheep breeders (which boykin2010 may or may not be) value a ewe lamb that can breed, especially if they twin. Being able to raise them to weaning, as this ewe has demonstrated, is a MAJOR plus. It's valued because it's an economical trait that leads to higher profit over the lifetime of the ewe. If she were in my flock, I would definitely keep her for breeding, as well as her lambs.

This selling would be boykin2010's call. For me, if the rest of my sheep were on such a totally different schedule, most of my ewes already had mostly twins, raised plump lambs to weaning time, then the less thrifty ewe and lambs, would be culled. I would already have the good genes in my flock, since this yearling ewe was produced by one of my other older ewes. Her minus items of being thin with the lambs and her lambs being less well developed than other lambs of the same age, make her less desirable to me. Seems she and her lambs both got poor starts, and it takes time and attention to "possibly" remedy these issues. None of the 3 may ever achieve the good condtion of other sheep, which has been pretty common in my experience. Even with extra time, feed, they stay "puny". Getting rid of them is an economical choice, since they don't return well on your investment. This is culling, picking the better choices, keeping and breeding them, removing the lesser producers, those not up to your standards of good or excellent as mothers and producers. Everyone culls to a different standard for their own reasons.

If you are raising sheep for fun, wool, pets, then you can keep her with a clear conscience. Put in the extra feed, wait to breed the lambs, see what happens. If you expect to make a profit on your lambs, this ewe is a lesser animal than others with better desirable characteristics, which you already have. I look at a whole package in each animal, with twinning expected in commercial breeds, good mothering in milk production for better grown lambs by weaning time. I would have weaned her lambs sooner, to allow her to regain body condition for fall breeding. This would help lambs get more growth with some extra feeding, see what I had then. We do commercial breeds for meat, so I would expect a 7 month lamb to be up around 130 pounds. These do not look close to that, for the 2/3s weight for breeding the first time, but photo may be tricking my eyes. They look less than 80 pounds, which is pretty small for the age of lambs. Sorry, I am not recognizing the sheep breed, maybe is a small breed. If you don't have any place to wean, that is what you have to deal with. No one can have everything you want in a set-up, so you work around it. But it may mean you have to take extra measures in feeding to get ewes prepared well for breeding in the fall if they are thin from feeding lambs so long. Those lambs MUST be weaned sometime, what are you going to do with the lambs?

Body condition numbers must be very different than with horses, since a 2 is pretty skeletal!! Horse with a score of 2 needs a LOT of special attention, any foal of age would have been weaned and removed so mother could get total benefit of the nutrients fed to her to recover it's health!

 

[SheepGirl]

Body condition numbers must be very different than with horses, since a 2 is pretty skeletal!! Horse with a score of 2 needs a LOT of special attention, any foal of age would have been weaned and removed so mother could get total benefit of the nutrients fed to her to recover it's health!

Yes body condition is different than horses Sheep are on a scale of 1-5, 5 being obese and 1 being emaciated/thin. Usually ewes that just weaned their lambs are 1.5-2 and are able to get back up to a 2 or 3 by breeding time.

And these look like Katahdin sheep to me...ewes usually weigh between 135 and 180 lbs.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I personally don't think I'd cull this ewe or her lambs, but I don't think I'd breed them either. A yearling ewe who can produce twins and nurse them for that long is pretty good, IMO. Yes, the ewe looks a little thin, but it's unfair to judge her for that since she herself was still growing when trying to feed these lambs. I think if it were my flock, I would hold off breeding everyone for at least a month, try to separate these ewe lambs any way possible, and let the ewe catch back up. If you start breeding at the end of September you'll have lambs born end of Februaryish into March.

Many commercial flocks who breed ewe lambs have 2 lambing periods. One early period for seasoned lambers, and one later lambing period for yearlings (who were bred as lambs). This is another option if you wanted to breed them this year. You could breed your mature ewes now, then breed your ewe lambs later like in October/November and have later spring lambs. Of course if these are the only 2 ewes that would not be in synch with your flock, it may be better to wait and breed them next year instead of risking them and the lambs.

How old/big was this ewe lamb when she was bred?

 

[boykin2010]

I am not wanting to sell any females this year. I am trying to get my herd numbers up, so i need to keep all the females. I probably wont even cull any ewes next year either.
I am going to post 2 more pictures and let yall judge. Sheepgirl, I dont know how to body score the ewe so hopefully with the picture you could help me make an estimate on the body score. These lambs were also second to last being born in my herd this year. So they are a little behind in age but that doesnt mean much because they are still small altogether. I am hoping that I can sell the rams that i have in a seperate pen. If i can sell them, then i will have a free pen to put the twin ewes in and wait until they gain some wait. I would like to breed them so i can get some lambs around Easter. Do yall think this could be possible?

Ok here is the two pictures. The first is another of the mother

This one is the mother and ewe lambs side by side again

 

[SheepGirl]

Your sheep appear to be in pretty good condition; I couldn't tell you the actual score as it is a touch-and-feel kind of a thing. This is essentially taken out of my Storey's Barn Guide to Sheep:

BCS 1.0 - Emaciated. The spine is sharp and prominent and it is possible to feel between each transverse process.
BCS 2.0 - Thin. The spine is sharp and prominent and the muscles are full but have little fat cover. With a little pressure, you can pass fingers under the ends of the transverse processes.
BCS 3.0 - Average. The spine is smooth and rounded. The muscles are full with moderate fat cover. You need to press hard to find the ends of the transverse processes.
BCS 4.0 - Fat. You need to apply pressure to detect the spine as a hard line. The muscles are full and the fat cover is thick. The transverse processes cannot be felt.
BCS 5.0 - Obese. The spine cannot be detected. There is a fat dimple over the spine. The muscles are very full with dense fat cover. The transverse processes cannot be detected.

Production Stage & Optimal Score: (also from Storey's Barn Guide to Sheep)
Breeding: 3.0-4.0
Early/Mid Gestation: 2.5-4.0
Lambing (singles): 3.0-3.5; (twins) 3.5-4.0
Weaning: 2.0 or higher

 

[Royd Wood]

They look pretty good to me and if you hold off breeding till the end of Sept / early Oct then they might catch up.
I'm in the same boat as you and trying to build up my flock so the ram lambs go for our farm shop and the ewes stay for lambing. For the second year on the run my ewe lambs have turned out great but a couple of ram lambs are not as good.
Good luck anyway