Doc: Replacing the Irreplaceable Ram

This winter we lost our favorite (and only) ram, Doc. He wasn't perfect--- as you can see, his horns were too close together--- wider spacing is preferable. He was 1/2 Katahdin and 1/2 Shetland. He sired a whole bunch of lambs for me across several years to the point that my current ewe flock consists almost entirely of his daughters. Yes, he became a bit of a genetic bottleneck and urgently needed replacement!

This is Doc's sire, Igor. He was a nearly fullblood Katahdin. I had been experimenting with crossbreeding my Shetlands with hair sheep to spare myself the chore of collecting the wool I had no market for. At first I tried White Dorpers, but those rams are expensive and not locally available. So I thought of Katahdins. I looked on Craigslist and a lady who lived near Iron Mountain was giving her old Katahdin ram away. So I picked him up, changed his original name of Eeyore to Igor, and used him on my flock. In addition to Doc, he sired a number of daughters whose bloodline lives on in our flock.

Doc's mom was Romana, a purebred and registered Shetland ewe. This is not a picture of Romana. Romana had no horns. This was Romana's mother, Piroschka, a wonderful ewe who lived many years and who is probably the reason so many of Doc's daughters have horns. Shetland blood adds friendliness and hardiness to the mix.

This is a picture of Doc as a lamb, along with his year-mate and uncle, Bela, a son of Piroschka, who made no mark on the flock at all due to dying young.

The question is, how to replace him? He combined the two breeds I wanted for my crossbred flock, Shetland and Katahdin. The only way is to replace him with two new rams--- one a Katahdin and one a Shetland.

This isn't going to be easy. The Katahdin would ideally be a color other than white. For the Shetland, I'd want a moorit (brown), ideally, since I have no moorits left. The Shetland would have to be horned, and, best case, be the son of a horned ewe. If not, I'd want to get a horned ewe lamb to revive my pure Shetland line.

Some of Doc's horned ewe daughters

Checking Ram Fertility with a Serving Capacity Test

Xami the ram lamb, who's standing funny because he's peeing

It's not just the fully infertile ram you have to worry about. There is also the fact that some rams are more fertile than others.

A highly fertile ram will get more ewes bred. He will also ensure that more of the eggs ovulated by each ewe he breeds gets fertilized, leading to more multiple births. A low-fertility ram can't do this.

In a July 1990 article in Sheep! magazine called "Is your ram a dud or a stud? Knowing the difference pays off" the authors talk about the difference in breeding fertility between rams. In the wild, all rams are in a genetic competition to see who can breed the most ewes. The highly-fertile ram produces far more offspring than his less-fertile brethren, and so his genes have a greater influence over the wild herd.

In domestication, most male lambs grow up to be dinner. The shepherd picks future herd sire based on many different factors, from birth number (twin or single) to coat color to horned/polled status.... We just assume that the pretty boys we pick out will be fertile. And sometimes we are disappointed.

The article speaks of a procedure called a serving capacity test. A ram is observed in a small pen with about three in-heat ewes. The number of times he services the ewes is counted. If a group of rams is given this test, the numbers generated have been shown to predict breeding efficiency.

In a small farm flock the article authors recommend exposing each of your rams to three unrelated in-heat ewes for 30 minutes for the test. Rams who do not breed at all should be given a second test on the next day.

Another test the article recommends for larger flocks is to test 4 or 5 rams at once with 4 in-heat ewes for 20 minutes. Each ram that services an ewe is marked and removed.

For today's even smaller farm flocks, there may be some difficulty in coming up with enough in-heat ewes that the shepherd is willing to let get bred for the purposes of a test. A vasectomized ram with a marking harness can be used to pick out ewes that are in heat. (Make sure your vasectomized ram is really sterile first!!!) 

You may be only able to conduct a little testing. My suggestion is to use a test to choose between several rams of the same age. I wouldn't bother testing the ram lamb or yearling who is the least dominant of a group of same-age rams. He may not have the right personality to get the job done.

If you can't pull off a full serving capacity test, try this method of test-breeding. Pick your top two or three future-sire candidates, create three small breeding pens and fill them with three or four low-value but proven-fertile ewes, and leave each ram with a ewe group over a normal breeding session. Any ram who doesn't get all the ewes bred might be considered likely to be less fertile than you need. Using ram lambs, this may be a way to select for early sexual maturity without using an unproven ram lamb on your whole flock.

Moonshine, our new herd sire

I got Moonshine last fall from a breeder in lower Michigan, and am quite pleased with him, adds a little diversity to the herd since I usually use my sires I bred myself since I am trying to preserve the good shedding genetics I have in my herd (I have some purebred Shetlands that shed their fleece just as well as the ones that are 1/2 to 3/4 Dorper).

It was an eventful trip down to pick Moonshine up. Some guy in the parking lot of a Tractor Supply store wanted to sell me some sheep thinking I was a professional livestock dealer, and then there was the fun of trying to smuggle my new sheep back into the UP. The inspector guy says, whaddaya got? and I say, Moonshine....


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Robert Emery pictures--- last year's herd sire

Robert Emery, 2007

 Robert Emery was all golden when he was born. I was very surprised. But last year I had quite a few lambs sired by Robert Emery who were born that exact color.  They turn white as they become adults.

Robert Emery, Claudius


When I took Robert Emery in the house to take some lamb pictures, my neurologically disabled cat Claudius came over to be in the picture. Yes, the cat is wearing a dog sweater.

This is a picture of Robert Emery taken today, Mar. 13, 2011. Boy, does he ever need a haircut! He's penned with Rhys, Rei, Moonshine and Sharkey. Used to have my Dorper ram and 2 Dorper cross rams lambs in there with them, but had to move the Dorpers out to keep 'em from getting murdered by the little guys--- Shetland rams are WAY tougher than Dorpers even though Dorpers are bigger.




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