Breeding Season has Begun
Welp, the rams are in! That means our first lambs could arrive by December 5th 2023. Sheep have a 145-150 day gestation (about 5 months) so we could definitely have lambs in early December!
Sheep are usually seasonal breeders, which means they will only get pregnant in a certain time of year. They can tell what month it is based on the number of daylight hours actually, so really, they are photosensitive breeders to be specific. In the wild, a lamb born right before winter was very unlikely to survive, so over time sheep evolved to know that they should only get pregnant in the fall (spring lambing) if they wanted their young to survive. This means that the natural breeding season of sheep is around November-February in most cases.
So why am I breeding in July!? The breed of sheep I own (Polypay) has been specifically developed to be able to breed naturally at any time of year. As people started domesticating sheep, before the time of refrigeration or the ability to keep food fresh for months and months, it was very important to have lambs born at all times of the year so that there would be sheep ready for butcher whenever you ran out of lamb to eat. So breeders have been selecting for this “market advantage” for hundreds of years, and we are getting really good at it now.
Breeding in July still has its challenges, even if the sheep are technically fertile. The heat can greatly affect ram activity, meaning that they will just be lazy all day in the heat and only breed in the early hours or just before dusk when it is cooler. The number of sheep that get pregnant, or breeding percentage, will be lower than the “natural” season, definitely. I also have another factor working against me: my ewes’ age. All of my girls are just about 9 months old and some of them may not even be cycling yet. When you are breeding “mature ewes” (ewes that have had lambs before) you can be sure that they have hit puberty already (since they have already had at least one lamb in the past) but with “ewe lambs” (in this case ewes that have never had a lamb and are under a year old) there is no guarantee.
Sheep cycle every 17 days, and I will be leaving the rams in for three cycles, so the earliest lamb and the last lamb could be 50-60 days apart from each other. I plan to ultrasound the girls to see who got pregnant and who is still “open” in a few months and throw the ones who “missed” in the summer breeding into the winter group (breeding starts for them December 1st). But for now, get to work boys!