We are very critical about the udders on our ewes. In early years, so many of our ewe purchases were ewes that lambed and the udder was big, hanging down, the teats were too big for the lambs to easily start nursing by themselves. At Mint Gold Ranch, we want to provide our buyers confidence that you are buying sound udders in your genetic selection. Having a dairy background, we know the importance of sound udders. We have rated each of this year's mothers according to the chart below.
| UDDER | ||
| T | Udder with strong center support | |
| Good udder for a young ewe to med age ewe. | ||
| teats placed high in the leg to body fold | ||
| M | Udder with some depth but easy for lambs to find teats | |
| An udder that is very good for an older ewe | ||
| P | Poor center support, teats positioned low and hard for lambs to find. | |
| Lambs may need assistance to find the teats and start nursing. | ||
| This condition may even happen in first year ewes in which case shipping should be considered. | ||
| TEAT | ||
| S | Small, easy for small lambs to start nursing | |
| Generally no longer than 1.5 inches in length | ||
| M | This is a teat that is 1.5 to 2 inches in length | |
| Still easy for lambs to grasp. | ||
| Acceptable for mid to older ewes. | ||
| L | Teats 2.5 inches or longer. | |
| Difficult for the new born lambs to grasp. | ||
| Certainly a condition to ship a young ewe. | ||
| This may occur from swollen teats, which still represents a genetic short coming. | ||
| MILK FLOW | 1 | Low, small quantity, single lamb only |
| poor stream | ||
| 2 | Good stream, volume very adequate for single lamb, but maybe low for twins. | |
| This milk flow maybe adequate for ewe lambs due to maturity. | ||
| 3 | Good stream, volume very adequate for twin lambs and small triplets, but maybe low for larger triplets. | |
| Very seldom udder problems, lambs keep udder cleaned out. | ||
| 4 | Very strong teat flow with very good volume. | |
| Volume is adequate for very large twins to mid sized triplets. | ||
| Maybe a concern for to much milk for a single lamb. | ||
| Monitoring the amount of feed and checking udder condition may need to be done periodically. | ||
| 5 | Very heavy milk flow and quantity. | |
| May need to milk excess milk do reduce swelling. | ||
| Volume is adequate for triplets. | ||
| Single lambs may cause udder problems. | ||
| Volume of milk will lead to udder problems without special care. |
This site was last updated 02/17/08