Although still August, the sheep breeding season is fast approaching. With hogget ewes reaching record prices in some early specialised sales, sheep farmers need to have a plan for sourcing their next generation of ewes – whether breeding from within of having to enter the market.

Producing your own replacements

Where farmers opt to breed their own replacements, they must remember that this process begins at breeding time and not when it comes to drafting lambs to keep for your future flock. The percentage of ewes mated to a maternal sire will depend on your flock’s weaning rate. Flocks with a weaning rate of 1.3 will need to mate 40% of their ewes with a suitable sire to produce home-bred replacements, as the weaning rate increases to 1.5 or 1.7, this percentage decreases to 35% or 30%, respectively.

Some key points to consider when producing your own replacements:

• Have a breeding plan and stick to it – be consistent,
• Use high genetic merit rams,
• Assign an adequate number of ewes at mating to produce replacements,
• Avoid problem ewes – mate those to a terminal ram,
• Produce enough ewe lambs to allow for continual selection,
• Identify lambs at birth (tagging) from problem free ewes,
• Use on-farm records where available.

On the ram front, Sheep Ireland data collected from commercial farms enrolled in the Central Progeny Testing programme show that the daughters of five-star replacement index rams have 0.21 more lambs born, 3.4% less lamb mortality and 4% better mothering ability.

For more information on using data when purchasing rams, listen to an episode of the OviCast podcast below where David Coen, Sheep Ireland, outlines how genetic information can help farmers make more informed breeding decisions:

Purchasing replacements

For farmers enrolled in a system where replacements are being purchased, have a target number and weight each year for your potential purchases before entering the market. For the latter, hogget ewes should be 80% of mature body weight at mating, whereas ewe lambs should be 60% of mature body weight prior to ram turnout.

From a biosecurity perspective, it’s advisable to limit the number of source flocks from which you purchase; talk to your vet about a quarantine programme and enrolling all new stock on the farm into your vaccination programme.

Michael Gottstein, Head of Sheep Knowledge Transfer, joins Ciaran Lynch on the below episode of the OviCast podcast to outline how to reduce the risks when purchasing breeding stock:

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