Ram Care – Practical advice!

“Care for your rams, so that they can care for you!!”

Extra care in the two months prior to mating leads to higher fertility.

More lambs, means more money in your pocket, but also leads to a better utilization of the ram`s genetic potential.

Although rams are the most expensive sheep on the sheep farm, they are often neglected.

Various articles have been written on the care and nutrition of rams. Emphasis is placed on ram fitness, and yet very few farmers exercise their rams before the mating season.

Pro-active or preventative medicine requires that certain management procedures are done in advance to ensure that the animals are healthy and in a good “working” condition when peak performance is required. In a ram this is at mating time, or during the breeding season.

It is important to understand the physiological processes taking place in a ram`s body, in order to understand why it is important to do certain procedures well in time.

Spermatogenesis and the maturation of sperm cells in the testes and epididymis is a process that takes roughly 60 days (2 months) to complete.

Sperm are stored in the testes at 32°-34°C – more or less 6°C lower than body temperature.

The warm blood coming from the body is first cooled down by a very intricate mechanism, where the warm blood runs in arteries in close proximity to the veins with cooler blood coming from the testicles. The cooler blood is then cooled down further in small blood vessels running close to the external surface of the scrotum, before moving into the testes to deliver the necessary oxygen and nutrients for spermatogenesis.

Disease and subsequent fever reactions, as well as even the slight fever encountered after vaccinating with live vaccines, can cause the semen to “overheat”, leading to temporary infertility. Conditions like blowfly strike or foot rot might cause a slight fever reaction. The sperm are then not all killed, but undergo certain changes that effect fertility. A proper semen analysis, in which special attention is given to sperm morphology, is necessary to identify the presence or absence of these “abnormalities”.

On the day a farmer introduces the rams to the ewes, he should ask himself the following question:-

“Did I do everything possible to ensure that these rams deposit the best possible sperm cells into these ewes?”
Note to reader: Some of these are repeats of previous two blogs, nevertheless see the repetitions as priorities!

-         Ensure a good spread of young and old rams by replacing 25% of the ram flock yearly. In this way you will always have a good balance between younger, virile rams with a high libido, and older rams with lots of experience.

-          

-         Shear rams regularly. Preferably every 6 months in wool breeds.

-          

-         Do proper hoof care. Trim hooves before the mating season and treat cases of foot rot as early as possible.

-          

-         Give a balanced ration – especially in the two month period prior to mating when sperm cells are formed.

-          

-         Get rams fit by walking them briskly for a minimum of half an hour early in the morning or during the late afternoon.

-          

-         Supply adequate shade, especially in the warmer parts of the country.

-          

-         Give the broadest possible protection against diseases by vaccinating you protect your rams against Pulpy kidney and other Clostridial diseases, Pasteurella, as well as against Corynebacterium infection (“cheesy gland”) - three very important sheep disease complexes.

-          

-         Additional vaccination against Bluetongue and Brucellosis is also recommended.

-          

-         Dose / deworm preventatively. A sick or parasitized ram cannot produce top quality semen. It is also necessary to treat animals preventatively before the mating season against nasal bot, as scent plays an important role in feed intake as well as in the detection of the ewes that are on heat.

-          

-         Rams should be tested for breeding soundness by a qualified veterinarian.

This entails a proper clinical check-up to certify the ram as healthy and free of disease. It should also include a detailed examination of the genital organs, a semen analysis which includes sperm morphology as well as certifying the semen free of infection (the absence of bacteria and white blood cells).

-         Breeding soundness should also include a mating dexterity test. It does not help if a ram has good semen and good genetics, but is unable to carry it on to its progeny because it cannot serve a ewe!!!