Cull with confidence - which sheep to cull from your flock and why

a friend. And they said to me, Why do you call you what are some reasons why you might call you and I thought this is a great topic. So thank you, Beverly M for this topic. So in this episode, we're going to have a talk about why we call sheep. And we'll look at us. And we'll also look at lambs and Rams as well to give us some ideas on the decisions that we need to make a different times I suppose, of their lifestyle. And it is hard because you've got to factor in lots of different

things. But to be honest, there's also some really basic things that we need to consider. And one of them I actually came across recently and hadn't seen it before and my breed of sheep, so I was quite surprised. And I think this probably this year was about 15 years old. And her teeth were so worn down, there was hardly anything left none of them broken, but really, really

worn down. So I suppose if we start with us, teeth, really to be honest teeth with all sheep, but you see it often with us because they're often the ones that have the longevity rather than for example weathers or things like that, or even Rams to some extent. But obviously teeth missing teeth, worn teeth. These are some things to really consider when I was classing us recently with Gavin we noticed

this as well. And this was a you with half of her teeth on the side of her mouth gone probably because she was in a fight or got a bump or something like that. Everything else his teeth were actually really quite good. But he certainly got half half ahead of teeth really. And given how important their their bottom teeth are to them to eat. And particularly to sort of break off grass, it's pretty important. So watching the teeth, teeth of your sheep, and making sure that they're in good

sound health. If they're not, then that can be definitely a consideration to, to think about calling in and thinking about moving that particular you to sheep haven potentially. Even that we're just out of lambing and indeed out of waiting, it's also good to talk about mothering performance. And this can be a reason, perhaps a harsh one but a reason nevertheless, because these are production productive animals

and production animals. So we do need to consider their, their their performance as a mother. So here are a few little things that came to me via a story Gavin was telling me about a romney breeder in New Zealand and he was suggesting that a US mothering or nurturing ability and protective performance is something that we can measure at

lambing time. So when we're perhaps particularly when the the EU has lamb that we'll talk about DISTO see as another separate topic, but this is about really their nurturing, protective sort of characteristics. If you stand her Brown with her lambs, when we're tagging them, as well as her realizing that she's got a couple of lambs two or more lambs, then this particular breeder rated that you as a top

score. So in that case, you know, a score of one as a top mother, so they identified, I've got a lamb, I'm going to stand around when you tag that lamb, and I've got more than one lamb. So I'm going to keep an eye on the other one as well. That's a really good protective performance and a good mothering ability, standing of course to milk and allowing that you to milk nuzzling that lamb over to the rear would be another sign. I'm stomping her feet in our

braid. We have a lot of feet Stompers, which I always love to sort of see, bleaching is another great mothering aspect that I look for as well. So are they bleeding and calling for their lambs, and I love it when when you can no matter where you are, what's going on that you have their eye on that lamb if not their lamb by their side all the all the time. So I think that's just all those things are

really things I look for. Going back to the story from Gavin, any you that runs off when we in this case, this particular Shepherd was approaching. And when they went to tag, if the EU runs off, or takes off, perhaps it was one lamb, then in this particular case, they're getting a lower score. Sometimes this this you might even get removed from from the flock. And again, if if you only has one lamb, they're also removed from the flock, as well. So that's yeah,

that's pretty harsh. So things to just sort of think about, definitely, I think that's something to think about, you know, if if, for me anyway, if they have had two single berths in a row. So they've, they've had their first go on, they've had their second girl and they're still producing singles. That's not what we're looking for in a red meat production system. So that would be an indication of perhaps that that

you need to sort of move on. And dystopia would be another element to think about how much difficulties that you have lambing and what systems do they need? You do need to take some considerations into into into, into your thoughts and decision here has that you've been overfed? For example, if it's a show quality, you know, that's actually overweight? Then, yeah, it probably the shepherd's

fault, not the US forte. Have you been lambing indoors in some countries, so you got to bear that in mind, you know, I know growing up, and even my brother, he's changed his strategies now. But when we land over Christmas, in Ireland, you just pulled everything, you know, every single use needed, needed some assistance. Why? Well, because they were indoors in a shed three months of the year, and they weren't getting any exercise, no hills, no walking, or walking for water, none of

that at all. So therefore, their muscles aren't as sort of adaptable as they needed to be. So they're, they're, you know, too lazy to push if you like, and you got to consider that. So I suppose when you think about that dystopia, you really need to think about what are the environmental conditions around that particular you? And have them? Have? Those are are those things to consider and bear in mind, as well, abortions would be another one, you know, has that you have had an abortion?

And what do you want to keep that you and your flock? Or do you want to move that you on? So again, that would be something to think about? You might remember for some of the lambing diaries had a couple of years with prolapses. This year. Again, those are on my call list. I'm really not keen on holding us in my system where they've had particularly vaginal prolapse is is just too risky. To to consider and too risky to

keep. I know, we've talked about this before, but other health, other shape, other size and the productivity of the other as well. So it is that you have enough milk to feed the lambs, particularly if it's one or two lambs, other blind teats in the order. And all those sorts of things needed a bit need to be considered when we're sort of making decisions has the you ever had mastitis? And when you check the order, is that a large lump or a small lump? So So those sorts of things to think

about? And what's the milk yield of that you looking like? So again, are they able to produce the quantity of milk that their lambs actually need and, and of course, that links back to to growth rate as well. A lot of these things might be associated with the age of the EU, you know, and then some farming systems, they will look at a five or six year old you and perhaps really think seriously about age being a factor. You've got to consider the different

breeds as well. So different breeds have different growth patterns and different age maturity, and longevity as well. So sometimes that's a benefit of a breed or perhaps not. So you do need to think about your breed that you're breeding and what the situation is, with that particular you as well. Late Lammers would be another one to consider. And again, it's

interesting, isn't it? You know, I remember originally thinking, well, surely Annie lamb is better than no lamb, but late Lammers, well, there's obviously something going on again, is it environmental environmental has that you had a temperature of fever, flystrike, something like that. And that could be the reason why she's a late lamb or I know I had one late lamb or this year and, and she's, she's gone to sheep haven't. So few things there to think about, does she raise a lamb? Does she

win a lamb? What's the weaning weight of that that lamb or the lambs that she's got all of those things, and that, of course, is very much all those things are very much around that mothering or that ability to produce offspring, which is of course what we're really really focused on, in in the sheep in the sheep business. A few other things would be and I've seen this already. Once and it was quite comical, does she jump

fences. And just you push fences and I have seen a jumper once but but I'm sure it was purely environmental. She was the only one in that paddock and lots of other sheep on the other side of the fence. And she just tucked her legs under and sailed across, you know, four and a half foot fence or whatever, it might be just amazing. But is it regular? Is it ongoing? And therefore, you might want to think about removing that sort

of that view. And that leads into I suppose, the disposition of that particular your temperament? Is she flighty? You know, does she sort of freak out? Is she sort of nervous? Is she what I'm just I'm Will that be passed on? Will that sort of behavior be passed on to her progeny? If it's this is a terminal environment, then, you know, it's probably not an issue. She's going to produce a lamb for you. I know, I have one in my flock of them all. But

she's an amazing mother. So she's just had her first lamb, but she's flighty is anything. And I'm simply a little bit on the sort of crazy side. And you know what, I was gonna give her one more shot? And then if she just continues this sort of crazy streak, or if I can, if I see that she's sort of passed it on, then yeah, that's, that's enough for me, we'll be we'll be sending her off to a better

place, I think, as well. And then, of course, you've got to think a lot of people do think about weight, you know, what's the weight of my use? And is that adequate? wait for you? Well, again, you got to think about the breed here. Lots of different breeds have huge different ranges of weights. So making sure you're aware of your breed weight standard, when you are checking your use and looking at us and does your you

get close to breed standard. You know, for ours, we our breed standard is somewhere between sort of 70 and 90 kilos. In EU, in fact, and I've mentioned this before, you know, 90 100 kilo us may not be the most efficient animal. So efficiency would be another thing to think about what I really mean by efficiency is she's big, she's eating as much as around most likely, how much does she produce, and she's doing triplets and keeping our conditioner, conditioner, that's

different. But she's just popping out an average single and she's eating as much as effectively to use potentially, then she's not efficient. She's not an efficient production animal in terms of producing more of her weight in in red meat every single year. So you've got to make those decisions as well. Then, of course, there's all of the structural elements. So in my calling, recently, we found a you were her past sins had

dropped. Now we were talking here about us chances are if they're at this stage of their life, in that sort of use cycle from two years on their past sins have actually been okay. Otherwise, we'll talk about that when we talk about sort of culling in younger animals. But this particular you her past sins have had dropped and Gavin was actually saying this happens over over time, this happens over over age. So looking for that, and obviously, really being aware that that's not a

good trait. Actually, just going back to the order the pendulous order element as well, I have a what I just called recently to, and her daughter was just getting pendulous. This is a ligament that's in the order. And it is a hereditary trait. So she's going to pass that on to her girls who also have a potential of having that pendulous or sort of saggy other, you really want your others to be nice and, and and shapely. If you like other things on structure would be what is their back? Like?

Do they have the sort of the roachy back the humpy? back if you like, do they have that sort of a grip that Devil's grip that you might have heard people's talk about in the back? And what about her withers or shoulders, we had one that we checked out on the on the weekend as well. And it was like a horse, you know, when you see a horse, the neck comes down and then this is sort of a lump at the back of the neck. And this is where you say that that particular animal

has weak shoulders. You really don't want that. So really watching for that being too wintery, I suppose and a bit like that horse. If you were talking to Jason he would say you could put a saddle on it. So that's the kind of look that that again, we're not wanting to sort of breed that in and that would be seen as a potential sort of structural defect, if you like. And then of course you are looking at the the feet, the hoofs, so feet incorporate and placement Mental feet and gait.

So where they place their feet, particularly when they walk, and how their feet sort of move isn't isn't other twists in the feet, all these sorts of elements, and then any consistent hoof problems, so has is a hoof torn has this particular you've got consistent hoof issues do they have Shelly who feel are some of the hoof actually breaks off. And again, that can just result in just ongoing issues, ongoing issues with their feet, and therefore, they're not going to be as

lively as they could be. And I've even seen this with one of my use, overlapping where she called her nail on something and then ripped off her nail. And, and that made her just sit down, which gave him a status who's sitting down so much that gave her mustaches picking up bacteria from the ground. So again, it's really interesting to see how something like those who fishes can actually come from, you know, environmental situations, but they can lead on to other issues as well, that

perhaps aren't aren't ideal. So those are all the things that for me are worth thinking about in terms of calling on things to be aware of, what is the sort of accepted industry approach is to call about 15% of your use annually. So this way, you know, you've place on your property on your land for that fresh blood if you like, and your placement

flock. And at the same time, you're also making sure that you can get some genetic gains as well, because that would be the other aspect to think about, you know, other better genetics

coming up. And then from that genetic growth, genetic possibility, you might be better off with the with the younger you courses, always pros and cons, you know, some of you that's been tried and tested and knows what she's doing, you got to think about the value that that you actually gives you and of course, that you is most likely going to produce multiples, where as a maiden may not. So again, you've got this

constant sort of battle. But if you're you really don't want to be feeding an unproductive or underperforming you over a year, and then finding out that perhaps she either is barren, doesn't get pregnant, perhaps, or aborts. Or worse, you have to actually bottle feed around which again, we do it, but it's not an ideal situation, they can do it much better than we can. They're designed for it after all. So we want to ideally focus

on focus on that. So what about culling our younger animals here, I'm probably particularly thinking of younger us, obviously, whether it's our terminal. So from their point of view, obviously, it's good to assess them and see what you see. But it's the younger us that we're really thinking about, as should we call or not

are for me, basically. And then a lot of people that I've talked to, they just say a runner as a weather and really what they're saying is that you is just for the sheep market, they're destined for the for the meat market, not for breeding purposes. And that's really when we say calling a younger you that's really what we're talking about, we're calling that you for meat, rather than for you know, for having that you are ongoing as a

breeding breeding unit. things to think about here would be again, feet and gate pasterns how they walk how they move. And, and and is that particularly that you structurally sound, obviously backline, nice, straight backline none of the withers none of the row cheese on the devil grips any of those things. You might even if you're looking at getting good conformation, you might even be looking at the twist in the back legs. And I know Beverly Ann talks very much

about this, this twist. So really what really good good hind quarter, that's really what we're wanting and trying to aim for that if you're if you're wanting to get that genetic gain, as well. blindness or cloudiness in the eyes would be another thing to think about this is challenging, because you do need to be careful what you send to the abbatoirs sometimes they won't take animals that

have sort of are blind. So you do need to watch that particularly definitely if they're blind in both eyes that the the avatar will not take that particular animal. So you obviously need to watch for that and that can be an environmental issue or could be sometimes a genetic defect as well. If you've kept her if she Baron Has she had a lamb by the time she's two years old. If If she's a very high quality animal I took

a punt on one. And this inch didn't lamb last year she produced twins for me this year. And what both of her twins are doing really well. One of them is in in the top 10% of growth rate in lifelock. Now I just love to see that and I think well, in that particular instance the gamble was probably worth it I'm I could afford to carry that unit through. But that's that's a luxury that not a lot of people will be able to do in a in a sheep breeding enterprise what is happening

with that young us mouth? How are the teeth placement, you know Is she undershot or overshot in overshot in her jaw? Does she have feed mouth? Feed mouth is where you will see that they have grass stains on their chin. Sometimes it's called a dribbler or dribbling you and again, this can it's very hard to know whether this is about

jaw teeth. Whether this is about their their own sort of behavior around cut chewing their Cod, or is this something more sinister so the Does this mean that they're they've got indigestion problem. So all we know is it's called feed mouth. And I guess I need to do a bit more research on to really explore it in a bit more in a bit more depth as

well. And of course, the fates you know, even feed issues and passions, all those normal things you may want to also and I know for sure I have a you from last year that I am still trying to get big enough to go into the meat market. So because that particular animal is so slow growing there, I call her scroll on when I see her in the paddock, and she's got a terrible feed mouth. And she's just always dirty and Woody looking. And she's very, very

slow growing. But at least hopefully I can get to a stage it should be ready soon, I hope to just color as a as a weather. You know, she's definitely not not breeding material at all. And then I suppose the last group, last but not least is our

RAMs, why do you call a ram. I know one of the decisions I made a couple of years ago, after bringing a particular group of rams to a three day field show was calling that ram when that ram started to change his behavior towards me he had experienced I use quite a cute little fellow and he's experienced quite a lot of head rubbing at the field day, over the three days and that caused him to get a little bit over friendly and therefore decided that he would run after me

and go to headbutt me Well, he didn't last very long and he went straight into the meat market and I have no place on my property for an animal like that by needs to respect me I need to respect them of course, and temperament disposition behavior is something definitely in in a ram being so big and powerful. And our breed having horns we we just cannot cannot tolerate it

at all. So really watching watching for that with so temperament disposition really crucially important in a in a ram growth rate crucially important in a ram so everything becomes even more heightened and crucial in a RAM, the RAM is obviously going to have a significant influence on your flock is there obviously 50% but the 50% of everything, or depending on how big your flock is, you know 50% of a mob of 50 that makes sense that's a significant impact over the genetic potential of your flock

and particularly when it comes to growth, right? That's

significant. So if you are wanting to get genetic gain if you're wanting to be able to turn off animals and quality animals now for me, I'm not interested in turning off an animal really really early because that compromises the eating qualities of my product having a paddock to play model and business this is crucial for me that I do not compromise eating quality for the sake of growth and therefore compromise flavor fat covering all of those things for the sake of often

what is just tender, but not very full flavored meat. So I want good growth rates but I'm also have reasonable expectations of what that actually would look like. And obviously given our property given the grass that we grow here and the pasture that we have, which we're always trying to improve as a lot of you are aware you know we've got to consider the this is the suppose what's feasible in our growth environment and in our pasture environment as well. And with

our with your Rams. The other thing to think about is particularly if you are breeding in a sort of purebred operation route crossbreeding operation does your RAM have good breed characteristics? So, they need to meet all of the breed characteristics that you would have a quality animal. So, this is everything for your breed standard, this is the weight of the animal. So, what is the mature weight of that animal it should be within the breed standard. What is the pigment

like on that animal? What is that for us for example, shading or this could be of course wool and that could be another reason of course to color you wear brown wool defects if you are producing wool as well. So, for us with the Rams, it is about that shedding potential to to any everything to do with your breed characteristics obviously goes without saying our Rams feet need to be really quality, this animal is going to be on their hind legs for a couple of

weeks a year. Literally, if you think about joining over two, three week periods, this Rahm is going to be spending a lot of time on his back legs, his patterns need to be impeccable, absolutely impeccable. They need to be a quality passed in quality gait quality foot placement, all of those things there's zero compromise that we can have in an animal that is going to breed with them with the requirements that they

actually have. So we really need to have zero tolerance for for any issues around around feet in a ram. So really quite important there with with our Rams making sure that that's that's in play and the teeth are the same as

well. You know, making sure again, all the quality elements around teeth health, teeth position, jaw position, all of those things and of course with the RAM and I know we've had a podcast specifically on Rams so if you haven't listened to that, please do check that out about about your RAMs, obviously testicles and scrotum size, chest to go health, no lumps in the in the tubes, in the in the scrotum, and, and really even scrotum circumference a good scrotum circumference a lot of

breeders also focus on the shape of the testicles, so ensuring that the testicles have definition but no split between the two testicles. So watching for those things in terms of our Rams that of course we're wanting them to, to have as well. Other things would be you know, what's the susceptibility of all of these animals to everything, whether it's an ammonia, whether it's internal parasites, external parasites, all those sorts of

elements. So just general nutrition Now, of course, you got to bear in mind, a lot of that is going to be environmental. So you know, you can blame you for having high worm burden if you haven't rotated that particular youth through pasture. Or if you haven't done any fecal warm egg counts, you know, so you've got to be aware that a lot of these other things are more to do with the shepherd than the sheep.

Even though we do think that if the sheep let us down, you can do a few things with your use around making sure that they are they've high worm resistance and you can do some tests around that and with your RAM. I also test for things like cold tolerance and foot rot resistance so those sorts of things will be quite a useful sort of more genetic indicator that you can measure for your

Rams. So hopefully that's given you a few things to think about around calling your animals and what to look for to determine when to call and how to call as well and talking about how to call we will be doing a podcast on selling sheep soon. And that's really good because everything I've just talked about here is not about calling

to sell. If you're seeing a you with blind teeth if you're seeing a lamb like scrolling for example that is not a lamb or you to sell if you see around with bad pasterns that is not around to sell if you see a ram that has poor behavior I saw one recently saying you know not good around children. Well hello. Would anyone buy that ram to even be around any human being Never mind a child? That is not we don't we don't need that sort of animal in in the breeding

rest of your flock. And also it's about learning and applying some of these learnings to make some of these decisions so that your flock get better and better and better. You've been listening to the sheep show podcast with Jill Noble from holston Valley farm. Please take a moment to share this episode via your podcast, app, email or via social media channels. Each share helps us reach listeners just like you who can benefit from our content. Thanks so much

for listening. Until next time, sheep well