Katahdins are raised in diverse environments using a wide range of management styles and for a variety of reasons. However, there should be a few common goals in any flock. In addition to being a shedding hair breed, Katahdins have always been viewed as an easy keeping maternal breed. In recent years, many breeders have also begun selecting for parasite resistance to make the breed even more easy keeping. We know that the…
Achieving genetic progress and meeting your production goals depend in large part on selecting the right breeding ram for your flock. No animal has greater influence on genetic progress (or lack thereof) than your breeding ram. Selecting a new sire should be considered an investment in the genetic future of your flock. We all know that the ram provides 50% of his genetics to his offspring and we often hear the phrase that…
People frequently ask us for suggestions on improving the parasite resistance of their flocks and how to identify resistant animals, and with good reason. Intestinal worms, or parasites, are one of the most limiting factors to profitable production for shepherds raising sheep on pasture. Lambs and late gestation and lactating ewes are the most susceptible. The main parasite of concern in much of the U.S. is Haemonchus contortus or barber pole worm. The…
To best express their genetic potential, sheep must be in optimal body condition. Both overly fat sheep and sheep that are too thin are not as productive as they can potentially be. Body condition scoring (BCS) enables you to identify the animals that fall outside of a preferred range. You can use this information to evaluate feeding strategies and to identify animals that are not doing well in your management system. This article…
For most of us, raising sheep is a business. All successful businesses continually and objectively evaluate their products for performance, accuracy, and predictability. Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) as provided by the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP), allow shepherds to convert performance records for economically important traits into information about an animal's genetic merit while increasing accuracy and predictability for those traits. EBVs provide a science-based selection tool to improve or enhance preferred traits…
The SID Sheep Production Handbook states that a key limiting factor in genetic improvement is "accuracy of selection". In other words, to make the most improvement in our flocks, we have to accurately assess the impacts our sires (and dams) are having on their offspring. We need to identify superior sires as lambs and then confirm their superiority by evaluating their offspring. If they're not passing it on, it doesn't matter how good…
Gestation in sheep varies from 142 to 152 days with the average being 147 days. Just like people, individual pregnancies can vary, gestation periods of 138 to 159 days are not unheard of. Ewes carrying multiple lambs tend to have shorter gestations while male lambs (and heavy birth weight lambs) are usually carried for longer than female lambs. The form above calculates the lambing date based on a 147 day gestation period.
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