Mike CHS
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I love the color on her.
Ringo’s Lambs! Baymule’s 5th Lambing
- Thread starter Baymule
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frustratedearthmother
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She is gorgeous!
Ridgetop
Herd Master
Aria is super flashy. Latigo is long and very elegant. You will have to reassess at different points in their lives, but a tremendous increase in balance and type. I am glad you will consider breeding back to Ringo another time with his daughters. I agree the 3rd breeding is asking for trouble - weird things happen. 
LOLRingo is throwing his own correct type into his sons and daughters. He has added tremendous length (the loin is the $$ cut) and correctness in body. He is a great buck. Great bucks stamp their progeny with their own type and characteristics. He is certainly doing that. I would love to see what he produces down the line from good registered Katahdin ewes. Continue with improving your percentages for another generation and continue to cull heavily. You can select your next Katahdin buck for additional thickness of leg if you feel you need it.
I would not add in any Dorpers. Adding in Dorper blood just extends the time you have an unregistered flock. It is not necessary. You love the Katahdins - stay with them. Stabilize your Katahdin percentage breedings - the new ewelings are very nice. You have your flock plan - stick with it. Add a few good registered Katahdin ewes. Once you have the ideal Katahdin in your mind, you will know what to buy when adding to your flock. Too many people get impatient and think they can do an outcross and immediately have success. Line breeding is the safest way to breed when starting out. By adding breeding animals with the characteristics you want - thick muscling, length, etc., you will improve everything without bringing in another breed. (FYI In many commercial flocks Texels are now being used as Terminal sires to improve the meat to bone ratio. Frankly, with apologies to Texel breeders, I think Texels look like wooly pigs. Since I like to look at my sheep, I would not have one but they are supposed to put on mega meat when used as an outcross sire.)
Adding a couple registered Katahdin ewes is a wonderful idea. Go to the Katahdin show this summer with Mike and Teresa and see what is exhibited. Check out the different breeders and their stock. Each breeder breeds for his ideal perception of the standard. Decide what your Katahdin ideal is and then buy ewes that represent that look. Discuss Ringo's pedigree and background with Mike and Teresa to familiarize yourself with where the attributes he has that you want to produce come from. Not just his desire for head rubs!
Then you can buy ewes that share the bloodlines that produce those characteristics.You have already learned to differentiate a good ewe from a bad one. It just gets better from here! You are doing great! On the way to a great Katahdin flock!!!
l
WolfeMomma
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I need some color like that in my flock. She is beautiful!!
Sheepshape
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Arla is a really beautiful lamb. Are you keeping her for breeding?
I detest both docking and castrating, so ram lambs 'keep their bits'....and therefore their testosterone. Means some will get aggressive as they reach puberty, but I wouldn't keep an aggressive ram for breeding in any case. Some of my sheep do get their tails docked, though there's very little by way of convincing evidence that docking reduces the incidence of 'fly strike' or that long tails are a problem during birthing. When selling lambs, there is an expectation that they will be docked.....the reason that I do them.
I used to use a 'hot knife' at the age of about 6 weeks for tail docking.The lamb made a small jump as the hot knife was applied, but, as nerve endings are 'fried', the pain is just for a split second. No infections, bleeding is very rare. Lambs trot off back to mum and start feeding as a rule. Hot dockers banned in Britain now....so back to banding (though I'm doing very few of these).
My tups are only just in with the ewes, so I'm going to have to wait until late March, early April for the little ones to appear.
Over here we do very little line breeding, tending to go for 'fresh blood'.As good tups can be very expensive we really on borrowing one or two, or occasionally buying an 'old boy' who will still be fine to breed 30 or so of the flock. Inbreeding can result in some horrendous deformities......I have pics. of a severely deformed lamb resulting from an unintended father/ daughter mating. Ewe had to be put down. If anyone wants to see the pics., let me know, but they are truly gruesome.
Just to say I have an Arya, too. Mine is a morbidly obese ewe of 3 who is a total sweetheart.
I detest both docking and castrating, so ram lambs 'keep their bits'....and therefore their testosterone. Means some will get aggressive as they reach puberty, but I wouldn't keep an aggressive ram for breeding in any case. Some of my sheep do get their tails docked, though there's very little by way of convincing evidence that docking reduces the incidence of 'fly strike' or that long tails are a problem during birthing. When selling lambs, there is an expectation that they will be docked.....the reason that I do them.
I used to use a 'hot knife' at the age of about 6 weeks for tail docking.The lamb made a small jump as the hot knife was applied, but, as nerve endings are 'fried', the pain is just for a split second. No infections, bleeding is very rare. Lambs trot off back to mum and start feeding as a rule. Hot dockers banned in Britain now....so back to banding (though I'm doing very few of these).
My tups are only just in with the ewes, so I'm going to have to wait until late March, early April for the little ones to appear.
Over here we do very little line breeding, tending to go for 'fresh blood'.As good tups can be very expensive we really on borrowing one or two, or occasionally buying an 'old boy' who will still be fine to breed 30 or so of the flock. Inbreeding can result in some horrendous deformities......I have pics. of a severely deformed lamb resulting from an unintended father/ daughter mating. Ewe had to be put down. If anyone wants to see the pics., let me know, but they are truly gruesome.
Just to say I have an Arya, too. Mine is a morbidly obese ewe of 3 who is a total sweetheart.
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Baymule
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By all means @Sheepshape please post the pictures, we all have to face some ugly things in raising animals. By sharing and posting pictures, the good, bad and ugly, that’s how we all learn.
Sheepshape
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Well, here goes.
Skip this post by all means
It was such an awful thing to have to witness.
Skip this post by all means
It was such an awful thing to have to witness.
- Thread starter
- #129
Baymule
Herd Master
That’s very sad. I know how much you love your sheep and that had to really twist your heart.
Ridgetop
Herd Master
Pretty awful deformity, poor thing. The ewe must have been in pretty bad shape. So sorry about that loss.
I am still not convinced that the abnormality was due simply to a father x daughter breeding, unless the flock was extremely in bred. Deformities happen. In 30 years of line breeding, along with some deliberate in breeding, I have never seen a deformed lamb, kid, puppy, kitten or rabbit. I have done outcrosses, and then done inbreeding to "set the pattern" after an outcross. The only deformity I have seen was a doe that had a deformed single kid. It was an outcross breeding and just an unfortunate abnormality. The kid had to be removed by sectioning it inside the doe. Nasty.
Unless your gene pool is extremely inbred, there should be no problem with"line breeding". Line breeding is not inbreeding. It is breeding similar individuals who share related bloodlines in their background to produce uniform offspring. Carefully selecting the attributes you want to produce, you choose breeding partners from among distantly related animals. Usually you do not use anything closer than a cousin. In my experience, line breeding is the easiest way for a novice to start their breeding program. They don't have to know all the ins and outs of the genetics in other breeders' bloodlines, just their own. Eventually the novice breeder stops being a novice and is ready for an outcross.
Once you have a stable line breeding operation, you will want to bring in some new blood. You can then do an "outcross" - breed to a completely unrelated ram or ewe hoping to add something to your flock from the unrelated animal. Sometimes the new outcross breeding is a "nick" other times it is a dud. This is why line breeding is safer than outcrossing for novices. The outcross breeding can produce excellence or crap, whereas the line breeding usually produces uniformity. Hopefully you get excellence. Now you have to decide where to go from here. You do not want to do another out cross with these new offspring since you will lose the progress you have made with this first cross. Instead you have to "set the pattern".
You "set the pattern" with an "inbreeding". You breed back to the dam or sire (on either side) hoping to double up on those desired genes. Sister-brother, mother-son, father-daughter, are all examples of inbreeding. Once you have set your pattern back in what you want, you can continue line breeding for a while. At this point you have the option to breed to either bloodline as a safe line breeding, knowing the breeding should blend well.
A good line breeding program should give you a very uniform flock. In breeding and line breeding are what have been used by breeders to produce shared traits in bloodlines like parasite resistance, clean shedding ability, early lambing, low birth rate, high ADG, meatiness, among others. Some color genetics can be produced or strengthened by inbreeding as well.
Hope this helps to explain what is meant by the 3 terms - line breeding, inbreeding, and outcrossing. As novice breeders continue on their journey they will come across these terms. None of these 3 types of breeding are to be feared. You just have to know when to use them properly, and why.
I am still not convinced that the abnormality was due simply to a father x daughter breeding, unless the flock was extremely in bred. Deformities happen. In 30 years of line breeding, along with some deliberate in breeding, I have never seen a deformed lamb, kid, puppy, kitten or rabbit. I have done outcrosses, and then done inbreeding to "set the pattern" after an outcross. The only deformity I have seen was a doe that had a deformed single kid. It was an outcross breeding and just an unfortunate abnormality. The kid had to be removed by sectioning it inside the doe. Nasty.
Unless your gene pool is extremely inbred, there should be no problem with"line breeding". Line breeding is not inbreeding. It is breeding similar individuals who share related bloodlines in their background to produce uniform offspring. Carefully selecting the attributes you want to produce, you choose breeding partners from among distantly related animals. Usually you do not use anything closer than a cousin. In my experience, line breeding is the easiest way for a novice to start their breeding program. They don't have to know all the ins and outs of the genetics in other breeders' bloodlines, just their own. Eventually the novice breeder stops being a novice and is ready for an outcross.
Once you have a stable line breeding operation, you will want to bring in some new blood. You can then do an "outcross" - breed to a completely unrelated ram or ewe hoping to add something to your flock from the unrelated animal. Sometimes the new outcross breeding is a "nick" other times it is a dud. This is why line breeding is safer than outcrossing for novices. The outcross breeding can produce excellence or crap, whereas the line breeding usually produces uniformity. Hopefully you get excellence. Now you have to decide where to go from here. You do not want to do another out cross with these new offspring since you will lose the progress you have made with this first cross. Instead you have to "set the pattern".
You "set the pattern" with an "inbreeding". You breed back to the dam or sire (on either side) hoping to double up on those desired genes. Sister-brother, mother-son, father-daughter, are all examples of inbreeding. Once you have set your pattern back in what you want, you can continue line breeding for a while. At this point you have the option to breed to either bloodline as a safe line breeding, knowing the breeding should blend well.
A good line breeding program should give you a very uniform flock. In breeding and line breeding are what have been used by breeders to produce shared traits in bloodlines like parasite resistance, clean shedding ability, early lambing, low birth rate, high ADG, meatiness, among others. Some color genetics can be produced or strengthened by inbreeding as well.
Hope this helps to explain what is meant by the 3 terms - line breeding, inbreeding, and outcrossing. As novice breeders continue on their journey they will come across these terms. None of these 3 types of breeding are to be feared. You just have to know when to use them properly, and why.
