Using a Dorper Ram this year

Our ram above

Because we had some degree of success with this boy last year, we are using him to breed at least half of our ewe flock. Even though he appears quite wooly before he shed (see top picture) he had some beautiful lambs. They were definitely bigger than the Katahdins he was bred to. The only problem was that they were often singles, but then he did breed a lot of first time mothers. We were hesitant to use him at first as we only bought him as part of a package when we bought some Dorper ewes.
Fortunately, the ewes he bred last year were not wooly and had A coats for the most part, so the lambs all shed beautifully. They also fetched a higher price at the sale barn than the pure Katahdin lambs we sold.

The main advantages of Dorpers are that they are very stocky and have great back ends as you can see from the lower photo (not our ram). As the leg of lamb is the most important and heaviest cut, this is what you are looking for in a good carcass. As they are also a shedding hair sheep, they make a great combination with an existing flock of Katahdins.

BR-549

This is a comedy video from Junior Samples to give you a laugh in the New Year-if you like that kind of thing.
You may wonder what it has to do with Katahdin sheep. Well, we leased a rather famous ram to breed to our ewes last fall. They are due to lamb about the middle of March 2013. The new ram's tag number is BRT-549 and he was the top selling ram lamb at the Regina Agribition show and sale in 2011.
The original owner and breeder of this ram is Randy Thomas from Saskatchewan, who is known for producing top quality Katahdin breeding stock. He has shown his sheep at Agribition for many years.

Weaned lambs

We weaned the new crop of lambs from their mothers yesterday -actually just the males at this point. They area noisy bunch! They want to go back to their mothers.
The new ram is settling in nicely. In fact , he feels so much at home that he is very demanding about his grain rations!
We are starting to sell some of our 2008 ewe lambs now.

Getting new ram

Today we are on the trail of a new ram, as most of our ewes are now related to our present guy (see picture) He is now for sale for just the meat price, as he is 8 years old, but still quite capable of breeding his girls. As you can see he is big and solid, and a nice darkish brown colour. E-mail me if you are interested and live in Ontario.