Bluedog
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Black sheepWell, its done, all my sheep have lambed and I am no longer worried about having to deal with any more crap with them, but a new problem has arisen.....
Because I knew I was leaving Norfolk the guy who I shared my commercial flock with of 300 odd kept hold of my 50 or so Portlands and since he was having to lamb the other he decided to put the new ram in with my ewes.
Now to give you some background to the story this ram I bred myself, I kept him and 4 others entire because my stud ram was at the end of his working life, so I knew I had to replace him. There were 10 ewes not related to any of the others so I put them in lamb and I got 7 ram lambs out of them ( I get a disproportionately high percentage of ram lambs, something I am happy about when I want lamb, not so when I am trying to increase my breeding stock) and I watched as they grew. There was one who stood head and shoulders above all the rest, sadly he had a temper on him and everyone told me to cull him, but I chose not to, and I am glad I did, because he is an absolute stunner.
Now, last year I put him to a couple of young ewes, just to see what lambs he would throw, and I thought there was nothing lost as I would just sell him if they were not any good. So I had, that year a lovely trio of bright, strong, healthy lambs. Perfect but for one thing, one of the lambs were black. Now that might not be too important but when its in a white breed and the breed standard says black stock have to be culled its not a good thing. Now I put this down to the ewe, the ram only threw one black lamb so why should I worry?
So fast-forward to September time and the co-owner of the commercial flock put the big ram into the field with the ewes, and of course they have all been born and are now all running around the field, but a massive problem has developed, they are, for the most part, I would say about 80% are black!!!
Even the "white" ones are tinged with dark browns and black streaks, in fact all but two lambs are actually white! So now I have two issues, the first is that I have a whole crop of rare breed sheep that I HAVE to kill, ewes and all (and he managed to throw a higher percentage of ewes!) but I also now have a ram I cant use, and the others were all culled last year!!
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mihto
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Jacob comes into mind. And Laban. Something about putting sticks with shorn bark in water troughs.
What are you trying to tell us? 
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Bluedog
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That if anyone is interested in a flock of black sheep, I an more than happy to hear any offers!
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gil
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| Quote: | | the breed standard says black stock have to be culled |
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Bluedog
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| gil wrote: | | Quote: | | the breed standard says black stock have to be culled |
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Yeah............
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gil
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A case of putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak
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Bluedog
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| gil wrote: | | A case of putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak |
I promise you I'm not dense, I'm just confused as to what you mean?
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gil
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ewes; eggs >> basket/shopping/lunchbox...
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Bluedog
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| gil wrote: | | ewes; eggs >> basket/shopping/lunchbox... |
Got ya! Sorry!
The problem is that a large number of the breeders in the country now are of a, lets say, mature age........ and a lot of the flocks are being dispersed so I was hoping to get the flock a little bigger and now there 18 or so that I HAVE to cull, the majority of which are ewes........
........ and I need to get a new ram.
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sally_in_wales
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are you allowed to grow them on to eating size before you cull at least, or do the regs say it has to be asap?
Or, can they become 'not officially that breed' for the purposes of keeping them to a useful size, if they arent going to be bred further seems silly to cull if the fleece could be useful a year down the line
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Bluedog
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| sally_in_wales wrote: | are you allowed to grow them on to eating size before you cull at least, or do the regs say it has to be asap?
Or, can they become 'not officially that breed' for the purposes of keeping them to a useful size, if they arent going to be bred further seems silly to cull if the fleece could be useful a year down the line
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All it states is that I am not allowed to let them enter the breeding flock, and since its definitely the ram who is throwing the colour he cant be used to breed again. I am thinking of using him as a terminal sire on another breed, not sure which one yet, maybe a Blackface, as the Portland is a mutton breed, and the most amazing meat you have ever tasted......
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dpack
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pedigree breed rules are for show or paperwork
if they look like good sheep use them and dont worry about their name
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Bluedog
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| dpack wrote: | pedigree breed rules are for show or paperwork
if they look like good sheep use them and dont worry about their name |
I normally wouldn't but because they are a rare breed we are trying to stop them dying out, and losing an entire years breeding is pretty bad when there are only about a thousand ewes left in the world.
I also have some Suffolk's and Texels and I wouldn't care less if they throw any colour.
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Blacksheep
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a shame the rules have to be so strict on colour if the numbers of registered breeding sheep are so small. Does this happen very often in the breed?
I like Blacksheep 
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dpack
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good sheep but not that breed are not a total loss 
i do understand about preserving breeds but i also recon breeds are just types that work in a particular environment ,breeding close lines has ups and downs but retaining the best genes is not based on the colour of a sheeps wool
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kanisha
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are you so very certain that the ram you left is in fact the sire?
There is something a little odd here;
Black is recessive. ( there is a second form i'll explain later) in order for you to get a black lamb from two white parents both the sire and the ewe must carry black.
so in any mating where the sire and the dam are white and carry black you actually only have a one in four chance of producing a black lamb; you will get one white white lamb two white carrying black lambs and one black/black lamb; so your 80 percent black lambs doesn't add up.
even if a black ram had been used the ratio of black to white lambs assuming your flock of ewes is likely to be nearer to mainly white/ whites with a few carrying black would be at best fifty percent;
Is your ram carrying black? if you mated him to a white ewe and he produced a black lamb both the sire and the dam are carrying black
Only reason to get odd results would be using a black ram carrying dominant black which conceals a white carrier but clearly this isn't the case and is most often likely only to cause a problem in all black flocks like hebredians;
If you have good breeding records i'm happy to see if i can make any sense of where the problem is;
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Nat S
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bin the ram but the offspring will still be good for pets/crossing to a terminal sire for lambs/wool/milk and anything else any other sheep is good for...except pedigree breeding.
cull in this sense does not necessarily mean kill, just not breed from in a pedigree sense.
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Bluedog
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Unless the Ewes have managed the impossible the ram WAS the sire, its has him or a hermaphrodite! Portlands have a strong gene that we are trying to breed out of them where by the black comes through more and more, so its there and we know of it, but its not an issue now anyway, the ram has been culled, another is coming from the Calke Abbey flock (I hope) and the lambs will be killed as Hoggets( where aplicable!)
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kanisha
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if he was the sire then you really do have a problem and it hasn't gone away basic sheep genetics black is a recessive colour and needs both parents to be carriers to produce a black lamb every ewe who has produced a black lamb this year is a carrier; even if they go on to produce a white lamb with your next ram they have a fifty fifty chance of passing black to the next generation( you just won't be able to see it) only rigourous selection from good breeding records of ewes removing any that have ever thrown a black lamb in their lambing record is likey to improve the situation.
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Bluedog
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Yeah he has gone, cheers.
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