Sheep Farming: Picking The Keepers!How We Choose Ram Lambs For Breeding Stock|April 2022

Today at Ewetopia Farms, sheep farming involved selecting the best ram lambs for use as potential breeding stock. We take you through our registered Suffolk and Dorset ram lambs to see what we are looking for in a breeding ram. I describe conformation, breed characteristics, growth rates, and more. We use our stock recorder for general information about each lamb but we must use our knowledge and preferences for making final decisions. Your ram is probably the most important sheep in your flock as he has the most influence on your future market lambs and replacement ewes. He should be chosen wisely.
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[@cindyboard7816]

CONGRATULATIONS on Gladiator's success!!! He is beautiful and his offspring is the added evidence of his value!!! Tough choosing from your herd for sure!!! I saw Cammy give Ewetopia a shout out!!!! That was so cool!!!😎 Stay safe!!!

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thanks Cindy. I saw the shout out too which was really nice of him. He is awesome!

[@clarehagley2165]

Clammy (sheep game) sent me over as well. Hi from Western Australia. Love Sandi Brock as well.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Hi Clare from Western Australia! Thank you so much for joining us on our farm. Although all three of us are sheep farming, we are all also totally different. I hope you enjoy our farm and sheep!

[@VCcoffee68]

This is so cool to watch! Gladiator is the man..err Ram! I think Knox would be a great name for one of the Rams 😊

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Definitely like that name! I will add that to my list of 3 names that I plan to use. I am just waiting until we have the final selection before I name anyone and then I will do a video to introduce them formally!

[@LadyLithias]

Will you share as much as possible about showing the sheep? I'm fascinated by the concept. Not sure they have anything like that around here for Jacobs, but it's very intriguing to me and I love it when you share about showing the sheep because it isn't something I've learned about from other KZbin Videos, and of course I'm a sheep novice, since it's not even a full year since I got my flock. I'd love to follow along. Last summer we did go to the county fair here in Southern Oregon, and I was intrigued by the sheep at the show, but generally disgusted by the way they dock the tails. I know you said that in Canada they don't allow that anymore, for which I'm grateful. A week ago snow was forecast. When I looked deeper into the forecast, I was a bit disappointed (and glad) to see it was only one to three inches of snow forecast for the entire storm. (Glad because work load goes up, and I'm worried about my lambs, disappointed because we are in severe drought and snow-pack is the only pathway out!).... Well yesterday was bright and sunny, and my dad shoveled the 9 inches off the deck, only to have a further foot of snow dump on us overnight. Makes for gorgeous photos. It was a windless snow last night, so the build up of snow on each strand of wire around my pasture looks like a lattice of lacework instead of fences. With only a token barn, it's quite a bit crowded for 10 lambs and 7 ewes, so this morning I saw the ewes leading the babies to some of our juniper trees that are thick enough to have wide bare patches beneath them. I was going to muck out the barn today (by hand, no tractor) but I think I'll just spread a bale of straw on top. Oh, and Cammie from The Sheep Game gave you a shout out. :)

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Yes, as we go along, I will post everything we do to prepare for the shows. However, be warned, we both just wing it. We have never been trained, never been to 4H and clip our sheep with scissors lol! We have no sheep stand or anything fancy. As always, it is about the sheep. We would be nothing without them because they carry us through the shows not the other way around! Love your descriptions of the snow! Always nice to hear from you!

[@LadyLithias]

@@EwetopiaFarms Well to be honest, I'm interested in how *you* do things, not how others do things. I like your take on everything. Will you take both dorset and suffolk? I'm looking forward to getting a small glimpse into your preparations. Speaking of clipping sheep, I found an odd thing in my paddock this weekend. If I didn't live with so many people who interact (aka interfere) with my sheep, I would have thought nothing of it, but I'm pretty sure that one of the people living in my home took some scissors to one of my ewes. I found a fist-sized clump of wool with the inner clean side looking perfectly straight like it was cut off by a tool. Do you ever see a full clump of wool like that that just falls off the sheep? Our property has 5 acres of mixed forest/meadow where the boys run. My niece who moved in this March was utterly horrified when I told her I'd be moving the rest of the sheep over. She told me that would ruin all of *her* plans. Plans she's apparently gone ahead with, without asking me or my father whether we're okay with them. It's my father's land, but I'm to inherit it. (Or so I've been told). I'm facing a deep level of frustration because she's upset since "All you care about is the sheep, you don't care about my dogs, and you need to compromise with me so my dogs can do what they want." I have to wonder, what did she think would happen when she moved here. She knew I had sheep, knew I had plans for the forest, knew we had chickens. Anyway, sorry for venting. Hubby is out of town at a Chess Tournament.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

@@LadyLithias well, I will be sure to show everything. It is another very busy time but a lot of fun. We will show the Suffolks, Dorsets and the crosses so we should be working on about 14 lambs. No, wool does not break off on a straight line.

[@LadyLithias]

@@EwetopiaFarms I didn't think so. I've asked my father, and my drunk brother in law, but they know nothing about it. I'll ask my neice and her man next. Either just before or just after I set them straight that NO they can't eliminate half of my pasture for my sheep because they have some fabulous idea for how to turn a drought-stricken area into a nicer area. Thank you for listening. I'm looking forward to learning more from you. I know you have a busy life, but I'm so glad you're doing your videos!

[@scootytamra]

Awesome, it's Gladiator's offspring!!!! He's my favorite of all your Rams, not that all your Rams are not nice, because they are, but he's my favorite!

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Yes, Gladiator is special too me too and I was quite happy to see another great selection from him again this year!

[@ditryn1382]

New subscriber In North Dakota, Cammy from The Sheep Game sent me.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thank you so much for subscribing! I hope you enjoy your time spent with us! I will have to check Cammy's video today. I love his stuff! Hard to beat the accent and fabulous scenery!🙂

[@ditryn1382]

@@EwetopiaFarms you are very welcome. I look forward to more of your videos, todays was packed full of knowledge and experience, thank you. I agree, love watching The Sheep Game, Cammy has an amazing sense of humor as well as knowledge and what’s not to love about beautiful Scotland.

[@randomjournalbitsdawnboss]

This is the first video I have watched of yours. I came to your channel because I saw you mentioned on “The Sheep Game.” I really enjoyed it and will be all of the others so I can get to know farm better! Thanks for sharing.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thanks for taking the time to check us out! I hope you enjoy time spent with us as we go about our daily rounds. Any comments are always appreciated!

[@mimidavis2686]

Cammy from Sheep Game commented today about your channel so I looked you up. I love sheep, especially during lambing season. Looking forward to going back and watching your previous vlogs to get to know you and your farm. Have an awesome day and thanks for sharing your life with us! 💞🐑

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thank you and welcome to Ewetopia Farms! I hope you enjoy our videos and stay with us!

[@mj3026]

People get extremely jealous over show animals, I’ve even seen a program about it & some people have even poisoned other people’s animals so that they could win , which is just shocking, & it sounds like that man was jealous about your sheep winning & so they should win because you do a amazing job bringing them up , thank you ❤❤

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thank you!🙂🥰

[@moemanda5020]

I've been away from the internet for a while, and I cannot believe the growth in these rams! This was an extremely informative video. It also looks like all your snow is gone and you have green! I can't wait for that to happen here!! Thanks for sharing your process.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

It's amazing how fast they grow! Snow is gone but there are nasty rumors that we might get more tonight...NOOO! Thanks for joining us again!

[@audreymcmillan8365]

Kevin looks lovely with his trim. Did you see today's the sheepgame video? Made me smile when he mentioned your vlog

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Yes, I just finished watching it. Now to figure out to do links like that in my video and give him a shout out back!

[@susanmarsh4351]

Oh the fun you are having. Where is the show held? What would be a normal number of ram lambs entered in your class? Lol at the excitement after three years with no shows.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

We usually enter about 5 shows. Suffolk classes are always the largest so placing in them is tougher but more rewarding if you do. Often 20 rams. Sometimes more. Dorset and commercial classes are smaller so we are always trying to get more people involved.

[@joodznaturelives607]

Wonderful channel, I am subscribing for more woolly videos ❤️🐑🥰

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thanks for subbing! We appreciate the support 🙂

[@michaelwalsh648]

Enjoyed the video. A lot of really nice lambs!! Showing any animals, sheep, dogs, horses, cattle it doesn't matter. When you start out everyone is your friend. As you do better and start winning then your pool of friends change or diminish. A lot of exhibitors make excuses for their animals or brag about the quality of their stock. I always tried to let my animals do the talking by the results they achieved. I always say you always get what you paid for at the show and that is the opinion of 1 person, the judge, on that day. You may not always like or agree but you got what you paid for. Some days you lose when you know you should have won and other days you win when you know there were better exhibits presented. It's hard but you have to keep it all in perspective. Good job on the video!!

[@EwetopiaFarms]

I agree totally. And judges opinions are often very far apart. Our Geronimo was grand champion at one show and dead last at another lol! So, you do have to enjoy it and take the results with a grain of salt!

[@scootytamra]

I always watch every day, i will check it out,Thanks.Tom so that is his name, i thought it was a simple name, i figured you were going to tell me that he was bent out of shape because of Buddy's arrival to your farm. Male cats sometimes have that territorial thing going on?

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Yes they are territorial and he wasn't too happy about Buddy but although the three of them don't love each other, they have learned to coexist 😄

[@joannlamberti1821]

Cammie sent me.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Welcome to Ewetopia Farms! I hope you enjoy our videos 🙂

[@scootytamra]

Lynn, just curious, what ever happen to your other barn cat besides Scotty or Buddy? Sorry i forget his name? I love seeing Scotty and Buddy, Buddy reminds me of my cat Opie.

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Funny you ask about him - Tom - because he is a wild and shy cat so often runs off. But if you watch tomorrow's video, he is actually in it!🙂

[@kholilisam124]

got2🖒🖒🖒

[@susanmarsh4351]

Loading difficulty noted.

[@reneguenther9369]

WHAT AN AWESOME VIDEO.... WHAT A BEEUTIFUL STOCK BREED..... U R AWESOME... ALONG WITH CAMMY IN SCOTLAND.... WHAT WERE THE PERCENTAGE OF HUE LAMBS TO RAMS?... IT LOOKS LIKE U HAD ALOT MORE HUE LAMBS THIS YEAR...

[@EwetopiaFarms]

Thanks. Actually in those first two groups we had more rams than ewes. We had 60 ewes who weaned 60 ram lambs and 55 ewe lambs. That is live lambs - it doesn't count lambs that died. So they produced 1.9 live lambs/ewe. We'll see how the next groups do when we wean them!

[@reneguenther9369]

@@EwetopiaFarms THAT'S AWESOME!!! DO THOSE INCLUDE HEWS THAT WERE BRED NATURALLY?...

[@EwetopiaFarms]

@@reneguenther9369 all our ewes are bred naturally

[@reneguenther9369]

@@EwetopiaFarms IMPRESSIVE...💗💗....

[@andrelacombe2131]

I toled you before gladiator was your best Ram.... LoL 😆

[@EwetopiaFarms]

I hope his son does well for you too!

[@DLKHAY]

Have you considered an outside observer? If your choice in Rams is carrying through your offspring that's great but do you ask yourself if you are not considering all the market requirements of your customers? I've seen this lots where the market trends are not recognized by the breeders as they have their own genetic traits that they look for. This is not a criticism just a thought. Powerful set of both ram and ewe lambs

[@EwetopiaFarms]

We are a big believer in producing what our customers are looking for and that is why we have Dorsets and Dorset crosses. But in the Suffolks, we also carry a variety of Suffolk "types". In Canada, the British style of Suffolk is popular with commercial breeders and the taller more American style is popular with people in 4H and those wanting to show sheep (because as I've mentioned in my videos, the big sheep generally win the shows). So those two types apply to a smaller proportion of our market. The bulk of our customers are looking for our Canadian style Suffolk which is a more moderately sized sheep that still has the muscling of the British but are a little taller so are still able to compete in the show ring. So when we choose rams, we are taking all these things into consideration. We couldn't survive without be able to fulfill our customers needs. That is also why we use 10 unrelated rams as genetic diversity is so important also. My biggest problem is finding new rams to buy in because I find most people stay stagnant and don't mix-up their genetics every few years so I can't buy from the same farm twice! I can always supply new genetics to our buyers so they keep coming back.

[@DLKHAY]

@@EwetopiaFarms it is difficult to be a progressive breeder to say the least. Keep up the great work and videos, my girls love to see and pick out their favorites from your feed bunk shots

[@EwetopiaFarms]

@@DLKHAY thanks! And by the way, if we had sheep people living near us, I would LOVE to get their opinions! In fact, I always ask people when they visit!

[@rasheedhanbali1262]

🇨🇦👍👍👍OK🇺🇸