For those who have newly entered the world of shedding sheep, the decision about when and how to join their ewes can often be daunting. For those who are transitioning from managing a wool sheep enterprise, the constraints posed by wool-related tasks to schedule lambing times are not issues for producers farming shedding ewes. It opens a whole new world of possibilities regarding when we can time joining, generate extra lambs and target different seasonal markets.
For the most part, traditional wool breeds have originated from the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In these conditions, the optimum time to lamb is a short window in Spring, this evolutionary pressure means that genes for seasonality have been strongly selected for in these environments. On the other hand, there are many breeds of shedding sheep which have evolved in temperate and equatorial environments, where seasonal variation is more limited. It is from this evolutionary branch that we can pinpoint genes that will allow lambing at any time of the year.
With these identifiable genetic tools, shedding breeders can look at shorter lambing intervals such as lambing every seven to eight months. The increased frequency of lambing can lead to more lambs weaned per ewe per year and allow producers to target lamb markets when there are times of low supply and higher prices.
Having a detailed joining and lambing plan is a must to harness the reproductive potential of your shedding sheep flock.
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