Steps for a Successful Small Ruminant Breeding Season

Breeding season is a crucial time for small ruminant producers. This is the time of year that will define your market opportunities, or lack thereof, for the next year. Using reproductively unfit breeding males has the potential to set you back even more if you intend to keep what females you may have from unfit or unhealthy males. Proper preparation can ensure a successful breeding season. A successful breeding season is important to ensure you have healthy marketable offspring to serve as either replacement animals or to market effectively to buyers. By taking steps to ensure the success of your breeding season you can improve productivity and make lambing/kidding management easier.

The following are some key steps to consider before and during the breeding season to ensure you have a successful lambing/kidding season.

Key Steps to Consider

1. Flushing with Feed to Increase Energy

Flushing is the practice of increasing the energy intake of ewes and does before and during the breeding season to improve ovulation rates and overall fertility. This can be achieved by:

• Providing high-quality forage.
• Supplementing with high energy grains or concentrates.

Start flushing about two to four weeks before the breeding season and continue until two to four weeks into the breeding period. This increase in energy can lead to higher conception rates and more multiple births. It is also important to ensure you are feeding a high-quality bio-available mineral by this point which is high in vitamin E to optimize reproductive performance.

2. Assessing Body Condition of Females

The body condition of your females is a vital factor in breeding success. Ewes and does should ideally be in a body condition score (BCS) of 2.5 to 3.0 on a 5-point scale. The BCS point scale has 1 being the lightest animals and 5 being the heaviest.

• Underweight females may struggle to conceive and carry pregnancies to term. If your ewes are underweight be sure to feed them a high-quality feed during gestation to slowly add some weight back onto them and prevent potential metabolic issues closer to the females` delivery date.
• Overweight females can have difficulties during delivery and may also experience lower conception rates. Moreover, if your females are overweight, they will not respond to your attempt to flush with feed given they already have higher levels of fat stored as an energy reserve.

To ensure your females are in optimal condition, provide a balanced diet with adequate nutrition and monitor their body condition regularly. Maintaining body condition scores, improving the condition of thin females is important for embryo survival. The embryo will implant itself in the uterus roughly three weeks after fertilization with placental development occurring shortly after that. Proper nutrition will ensure a healthy placenta and a healthy birthweight. Overfeeding during this time with a feed too high in protein can result in birthweights too large causing dystocia (birth challenges). While poor nutrition will result in lighter birthweights and offspring with a reduced opportunity to survive and thrive.

If planning to breed young animals, ensure they are 65 to 70% of their mature size. Plan to give an increased plane of nutrition ahead of time to meet this demand if your current feeding program does not allow them to meet this goal in the timeframe you strive to have them bred and ultimately give birth.

3. Fertility Checking Rams

Rams play a critical role in the breeding process, and their fertility is essential for success. Just because a ram was fertile last year does not mean he will be fertile this year. Factors such as heat stress or injury can affect ram fertility, causing temporary sterility. Its important to conduct your breeding soundness exam at least a month in advance or in a timely enough manner where you can be prepared to find a replacement male if you find your current ram is sterile.

To ensure your rams are ready for the breeding season:

• Conduct a breeding soundness exam (BSE) to check for physical and reproductive health.
• Evaluate semen quality, including motility (is sperm live or dead) and morphology (shape of the sperm heads and tails). Generally, a low motility male has the potential to get better if he was under heat or nutritional stress prior. However, morphology is generally more of a genetic defect in that respective animal. Thus, checking your males is valuable because weather and nutrition can drastically change a male`s breeding potential.
• Ensure rams are in good body condition and free from lameness or other health issues. Make sure your ram is in better body condition than your females as you should anticipate him to run some weight off during breeding season. An acceptable body condition would be a 3.5. However, a BCS of 4 would be more desirable than a BCS under 3 in a male.

Regularly monitor male behavior during the breeding season to detect any issues early and be prepared to treat the male quickly or have a back-up to replace him since an injured or sick male will not breed many females or potentially hurt himself further.

4. Understanding Weather and Breeding Seasonality

Weather and seasonality significantly impact small ruminant breeding. While certain breeds have a larger breeding window than others, most sheep and goats are seasonal breeders, with ewes and does becoming fertile as days shorten in the fall. However, extreme weather conditions can affect breeding success.

Plan your breeding season to align with favorable weather conditions and provide shelter and appropriate care to mitigate weather-related stress. If it becomes hot while you are breeding your females it would be mindful to remove the male in the mornings to avoid him running with females during the heat of the day, then put him back in as the temperatures go down in the evening when you are doing your evening feeding. This will help prevent potential heat stress.

5. Using Teaser Males or Hormonal Treatments to Synchronize Females

Synchronizing the estrous cycles of your females can make the breeding process more efficient and tighten the window in which you can expect offspring. By decreasing your breeding window, it makes labor at lambing easier as you know when to expect offspring to be born. Additionally, consistency of product is arguably the biggest set-back to the lamb and goat meat industry. If selling lambs to any buyer seeing a group of lambs of consistent size and quality makes your lambs and kids more desirable and easier to manage and market. Synchronizing your females becomes more of a utilized route when striving to breed your females outside of the typical fall breeding season.

There are two primary methods for synchronization which can be used in tandem or separately depending on your objectives and resources:

• Teaser Males: Introducing a vasectomized or teaser male to the flock can stimulate the onset of estrus in ewes and does. Teaser harnesses are also commercially available. These may not have the same effect as a male without the harness; however, they are an option to those who do not have the resources or desire to keep a teaser ram. The presence of the male's pheromones triggers a hormonal response in the females, which aids in synchronizing their cycles.
• Hormonal Treatments: Hormones like Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), progesterone, prostaglandin, and serum gonadotropin/chorionic gonadotropin (PG600) can also be used to synchronize estrous cycles. Progesterone treatments (300 mg) can be administered via intravaginal devices called CIDRs (controlled internal drug release). These devices imitate the function of the structure called a Corpus Luteum (CL) which will release progesterone. Pulling the CIDR from the ewe imitates the regression of the CL which causes the progesterone levels in the ewe to decrease and onset of estrus to occur typically within 48 hours. While prostaglandin injections help regress the corpus luteum (thus progesterone levels), of which induces the female to come into heat. A shot of progesterone alone will not cause the ewe to come into heat if she is or recently was in heat and no CL is present to respond to the introduction of prostaglandin into the female’s system. GnRH can also be given at CIDR insertion or PG600 either a day before CIDR is removed or at the same time as removing the CIDRs.

Consult with a veterinarian to determine the best method for your flock and to ensure proper administration and timing of these treatments based on your circumstance. It’s important to recognize that a protocol for artificial breeding shouldn`t be needed to breed your animals in-season with a live ram. These protocols are set up to optimize when a group of ewes will be coming into heat at a given time point when a breeder can artificially inseminate them. However, if using a live ram or buck with your females he should be doing the work of identifying when your females are coming into heat and get them bred for you. So, the highly specific timing of a complete AI protocol is a waste of funds for people in these management scenarios. If your females don`t come into heat unless they are given a boost from a slurry of synchronization hormones every year it begs the question whether those are profitable animals that you want to be breeding. This is an important note to make because many people think these hormones are essential for natural matings with a live male - that`s not the case. These hormones are a tool to manage the timing a mating may occur and optimize the opportunity to become pregnant during out-of-season mating. A conversation with your veterinarian can assist in outlining a plan that will best fit your breeding objectives so you aren`t putting added investment into your breeding program to receive the same results.

6. Using a Marking Harness to Track Heat in Goats and Sheep

A marking harness is a valuable tool for monitoring breeding activity in small ruminants. Fitted onto a ram or buck, the harness holds a crayon that marks the back of a female when mounted, indicating she is in heat. Depending on the environment your male will be running with females you can also use raddle powder which is applied to the chest of the ram. Raddle powder is used in instances where producers are concerned over the very real risk of the male getting the harness caught up in trees or brush. By changing colors on the ram every 14-21 days, producers can track different breeding periods, identify non-pregnant females, and monitor your male's performance. Regular checks of the harness/crayon to ensure it is properly fitted and detailed record-keeping of females marked ensures an efficient breeding program. This tool can provide clear evidence of mating activity and aiding in reproductive management. If your male marks several females with numerous colors, you likely have a problem with your male that needs to be addressed immediately.

Final Thoughts:

Proper preparation before the breeding season can lead to higher fertility rates, healthier offspring, and increased productivity for the rest of the production year. By focusing on the body condition of your females, implementing flushing strategies, checking ram fertility, considering weather and seasonality, and utilizing synchronization and breeding technology, you can optimize your breeding program and achieve the best results for the upcoming year.

For any follow-up questions about the information presented here please connect with me via email: aqb5615@psu.edu or phone: 814-865-1718