2025 Lambing Summary

This year we had 326 lambs in 27 days of lambing. We ended up breeding more ewes than usual because we wanted to test more rams. We used 8 rams for ideal pairings with 1 additional ram for cleanup, three of the 8 rams were ram lambs that brought in from other farms.

Lambing in the barn has its unique challenges. The ewes were happy when all was done and it was time to go outside. We just made it, 1 bale first cutting hay and 1 bale second cutting hay left, the grass came in just in time.

This is our 3rd year since we stopped doing ram-effect before breeding and we do not feel that it made a difference for us. Below we show how many lambs were born each day (blue line) as well as how many ewes lambed each day (orange line).

The following graphs show what percentage of ewes aged 1,2 and 3 (adults, 3 years old and older) had singles, twins, triplets and quads each year from 2018-2025. We breed our replacement ewe lambs to lamb at 1 year old.

Lambing rate is an important production statistic for us. For example, if 100 ewes produce 150 lambs, the lambing rate would be 150%. A lambing rate of 100% means each ewe produced one lamb on average, while 200% would indicate each ewe produced two lambs on average.

We want lambing rate not too high and not too low. We break Lambing Rate out by age of ewe at lambing, 1, 2 and 3 (for ewes 3 years or older). We like to see an adult lambing rate of at least 200%.

The less than ideal years were mostly related to nutrition. This year was a good year, adults had a 215% lambing rate which is satisfactory and we had only one set of quads. The graph below shows the lambing rate for 1 year, 2 year and 3+ (adult ewes) from 2018-2025.

Now it is time to make the best of the grazing season!