Selecting which to keep?

[RainbowFlower]

We, and a couple of neighbours decided to get into meat sheep (dorpers) mid last year. We have 20 acres of mostly bushy land, and purchased 35 pregnant ewes. We ended up with 30 lambs. We also have an alpaca, a ram and a stray merino. We need to get down to a core flock of 25 ewes, with the ram and alpaca, as we will be overstocked come winter (we are in Australia). This adjustment was always in the plan and we are really happy with the sheep. One thing we didn't think about was that it is actually 65 sheep because the lambs eat grass too.

Anyway, my questions:

1. When we put the flock into the yard, the lambs get separated from their mums. We have 5 or 6 without lambs, and will sell those. How do we match up the lambs with their mums? Or how do we tell which ewes don't have lambs?

2. We have been running the ram with them for a couple of months now. Is there an easy way to tell if they are pregnant again? I know that the ram won't mount them when the lamb is too new, but how soon after lambing will a ewe fall pregnant again?

3. We intend to keep a total of 25 ewes. Not necessarily all of them will be the 35 that we originally bought. Some of them will be the ewe lambs that were born here. As they are Dorpers, they shed their hair. Some or the ewes are obviously good shedders. How soon do the lambs start shedding, and can we tell which will be good ewes to keep?

4. We had 30 lambs. 22 ewes and 8 rams (now whethers). Obviously the whethers will go to the abettoir, but we will have to send some ewe lambs too. Is there a difference in the meat? I was thinking that the ones with scabby ears, or the funny curly hair (which look less healthy) would go. How do I choose between the others (from a practical point of view)?

Thanks for your help.

Lynda

 

[BrownSheep]

I have no clue how you could tell after you've separated them. The lambs have just quit nursing you could check to see who has bags or left overs of one. There is good chance they are bred. Sheep are hard to tell until they get close to lambing. You could get a vet to ultrasounfpd them. As far as I'm aware shedding doesn't have much to do with the quality of the ewe, but I don't work with hair sheep so don't quote me on that. Good ewe lambs to keep are correctly built and carry the ability to put on muscle. You might consider selling older ewes that could develop health problems. There won't be a difference in taste. However if you butcher any older ewes for meat you can look forward to mutton.the bigger weathers will probably give you more meat. If you keep ewe lambs look for the above things...some one else might be able to give you more things to looks for.

In my are a lot of people use Suffolk or hampshires to put on muscle and size. I have no idea whats available to you or even what your specific goal are though. From what I've seen Australian suffolks are differently built compared to the US Suffolk type. It's always cracks me up to compare the us and uk type suffolks. Hoped I've helped and that others pitch in with their practices.