October is a pretty busy month here on Waterfall Farm. My main focus on our shop’s harvest party which takes a good bit of organising and advertising. We had a fantastic turn out this year and all the children really enjoyed the pony painting, pumpkin carving and various Halloween themed games.

Tupping

But for my husband Michael and most sheep farmers the month of October is the traditional ‘tupping time’ when the rams get turned out with their lady counterparts. While everyone knows the importance of the female in any species, the ram is a special fella as he influences half the genetics of next year’s lambs.

Preparation for tupping or tipping began months ago. Nutrition is a key area as both the ewes and rams need to be in tip top condition to maximise fertility. They were dosed with anthelmintics at the end of September and mid-October as well as running through the foot bath. Michael always keeps a close eye on the flock’s foot health and trim where necessary on an ongoing basis. Lame sheep won’t thrive and I guess that’s obvious but I had to marry a farmer to find that out!

Another thing I never really thought much about was the sheep breeding itself. How do you know which sheep are ‘tipped’ and which aren’t? Luckily farmers have this one sorted out a long time ago. Before the ram goes to the ewes a harness is fitted securely on him. This harness carries a crayon on his chest. Every time he tips or covers a ewe, she is marked with the crayon. At the start Michael uses a yellow one and after 17 days he changes it to a red one and this coincides with the sheep’s breeding cycle. This method gives the farmer an idea of what ewes will give birth at the start of lambing and what ewes repeated (didn’t conceive) and will lamb later. The harness has to be checked daily to make sure it is secure and not hurting or rubbing the ram.

Twin gene

This year Michael has two rams and a spare. The spare ram is there in case one of the main rams becomes injured or can’t breed for some reason and he is running with a small amount of ewes. The Lleyn breed are very prolific and tipping a large number of females should pose no problem. We do know of one Lleyn ram who tipped 250 ewes in one season and they were all in lamb. Here on the farm, we had one Lleyn ram tip 30 to 35 ewes in 24 hours. Busy boys!

The two main rams are out with two separate and much bigger flocks. One of them has 180 lady friends to keep him busy. It is a large number of ewes for a single ram but Michael has done this before without any problems and lambing usually takes 3-4 weeks. This ram is a special ram, he was imported from the UK and he was an expensive investment costing almost €2,000. The reason he is so special is he carries a ‘twin gene’ which he will pass on to all his daughters and none of the male offspring. Of those daughters, 50% of their offspring will carry this special twin gene regardless of their sex.

Michael is involved with a small group of people who have been researching this for the past two years or so. His aim is to reliably increase prolificacy of his flock to 2% and over without increasing triplet numbers. There are two known prolificacy genes in the Lleyn sheep breed; one which produces litters (three to four lambs) and one which is twin predominant. Who ever thought farming could be so technical or scientific? As the wife of a farmer, everyday I become less surprised and more impressed with how scientifically advanced farming is. Definitely true love!

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