Monday, May 12, 2025
Breeding Sheep Out of Season
People ask all the time about fall breedings or breeding out of season. We have typically bred our sheep all year long. Our original commercial Katahdin gave birth about every 6 months. We didn't want them overworked since they weren't getting any supplementation and our one complaint with those original Katahdin sheep was that the 3-5 lambs they gave us every year were not very large (not surprising since the ewes were 135 pounds at full maturity) and we felt they could grow faster.
As we brought in new bloodlines, we continue to select animals that will breed young and out of season. We've found that breeding animals all year as often as we feel they hold condition well means breeding ewes about every 8-10 months. We are supplementing everything with low quality 'cow' round bales of alfalfa, so they have access to alfalfa on dry lots at night and they are out on forage by day.
We have never used CIDRs or hormones to get sheep to breed out of season. We've constantly bred animals at inconsistent intervals because of how our original sheep bred all year so readily. I found this podcast very interesting and particularly helpful for those who might be interested in breeding out of season that haven't had the opportunity to start with sheep like ours that did so effortlessly.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/04IkINUfWdbWKrIOR4NJY8?si=XZ19Qs5wQHOeNiJjVFqU1g