Sexual Maturity of a BFL ram?

[Basil G]

This past week someone offered me a black blue faced Leicester ram and after doing some research he sounded like a really nice sheep to add to my little flock. I should mention I just bought my first two sheep (2 mixed breed wethers) within the past 2 weeks for a school project of raising sheep for wool (going to an agricultural school can get you some weird homework).
I was thinking how will I get the ram to pay for his feed and using him for stud service was my first idea, but I cannot find anything information of sexual maturity for his breed.
the person offering him said he was born a few days ago (I wasn't planning on taking him until he was at least 60 days old, because of getting weaned off of mother ewe)
Is it possible I could use him for breeding this September or October or should I wait for him to be older?
thanks for the help

 

[mysunwolf]

I think it depends on the individual, in addition to breed. The Leicester's take a little longer to mature than a commercial type breed (ie closer to 8-10 months instead of 6-8 months). In general, 8 months is the minimum age that you can count on for rams to be fertile, even though some breeds of rams become fertile at 4 months. Many people prefer to wait until 12+ months to be sure, while others have reported great success even at 6 months.

So in short, he most likely won't be ready to breed this fall!

 

[purplequeenvt]

We've used February/March born Border Leicester ram lambs for breeding before without any trouble. Will he be able to breed at 6 months old...probably. Would I count on a 6 month old ram to get all my ewes bred? No.

I also like the rams to mature longer before we breed with them, but that has more to do with the fact that we are breeding purebred, registered stock and we want to make sure that the ram is going to benefit the flock.

It might be just me, but I don't think that I would want to keep an intact ram just to rent out to people. Unless you have a large number of people around you that are looking to breed to a BFL, you may have trouble making him pay for himself.

 

[Basil G]

Thank you for replying
I understand what you are saying with the number of people looking to breed with a BFL. I was hoping that maybe I could rent him out this fall that way next fall when I have a few ewes I could use him with the ewes I purchase, because I feel 3 wethers is kind of a dead end to my project (the first 2 wethers I did not get to choose to castrate them, but my school was getting rid of the wethers so I took them because their wool looks pretty nice and so does their mothers', but their mothers aren't for sale)
I don't know if I should start a new thread with this one, but one of the wethers I bought has wrinkles all over his face, does that mean he has some merino in him? (the mother of that lamb also has wrinkles) because the only breed I can find with wrinkled faces are merinos.

 

[Sheepshape]

We have Blue Faced Leicesters and have had males fertile at 7 months.

What I would say is that they are HUGE sheep. My current 'stud' ram, aptly named Goliath is a massive creature...about 18-20stones of muscle. Fortunately my ram is a good natured guy and is never aggressive. However, I would suggest that you bear this is mind.....firstly as to if you will be able to manage such a big animal and secondly what type of ewe he will serve. We use him on BFL and Beulah Speckled Faced ewes, and they BFL tups are widely used to produce mules in Britain. I only 'give' him the biggest Beulahs, though, reserving the small ones for their own breed.

 

[Basil G]

The breeder selling the ram just told me of someone else selling a BFL 4 year old ewe and if I get her I could breed them, but my original idea was to rent him out for stud service.
So we are all agreeing that he would be sexually mature in December? (7 months) at this point should I just use him for next year because sheep are seasonally polyestrus and the ewes stop cycling in December or January (because of the increase of sunlight)