# Ram rental



## mariaricarto (Jul 1, 2010)

I would like to rent a ram to breed my females. How much should I pay for this service? I would like the ram to be brought to my pasture for a couple of months. It would have to be dropped off and picked up. Any other considerations I should be aware of?


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## sde219 (May 19, 2010)

Where are you located? Someone here might prove to be a good option for you.

I think your rental rate is going to depend on the breed/availability, distance to deliver/pickup, and the level of comfort that the person providing the ram has with you/your farm.

Honestly, if someone was more than 10 miles away, I'd probably ask for a minimum of $100. It's the costs of time spent herding, loading, hauling, unloading - rinse and repeat. Then it's the cost of gas. Then it's the risk of disease, injury or illness - it'd be very clear about who bears the risk for those problems. It's also opportunity cost in terms of using the ram for breeding - I don't think many people keep extra rams around without using them for a season in at least some capacity.

You might find a better bargain in buying a ram then processing him for meat or buying a ram then reselling him when the job is done. Those are really questions of personal preference. I think it is definitely worth noting that keeping rams is not as difficult as keeping a bull and honestly can occur without any significant flock management changes. There are difficult rams (I have one presently) but even they can be managed to minimize risk, damage, or problems.

Also, if you are willing to take a ram when someone else is done using him for the season, they might be more willing to rent at a lower rate as they don't need him for quite some time.

Best of luck in your search!


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

It isn't just the risk of disease or injury to the rental ram, you also run the risk of bringing new disease into your flock. It could be a disease that wouldn't show up for years, but would damage the productivity of your flock. 

Consider buying a ram lamb from a reputable breeder. If you don't want him after he is finished his work, he will still be good for meat. You may even sell him for what you paid.

The one consideration in buying now, is that you won't get the best genetics from most breeders, they sold those months ago. However, if you are lucky you may get a good deal. We are selling a 6 year old ram that has overall our best record for offspring of all our rams. He is too closely related to much of our flock. 

The purchaser wants to breed after we are finished, so he will get him at the end of October. He is getting a proven ram with several good years for less than he would pay for a breeding ram lamb.


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## LibertyWool (Oct 23, 2008)

sheepish said:


> It isn't just the risk of disease or injury to the rental ram, you also run the risk of bringing new disease into your flock. It could be a disease that wouldn't show up for years, but would damage the productivity of your flock.
> 
> Consider buying a ram lamb from a reputable breeder.


This logic doesn't make sense to me. Rent a ram or buy a ram, same risk to your own flock that you will be introducing some disease.


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## eieiomom (Jun 22, 2005)

sheepish said:


> The one consideration in buying now, is that you won't get the best genetics from most breeders, they sold those months ago.


This is not necessarily true, especially if the breeder has a large selection of high quality rams.

~Deb


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

LibertyWool said:


> This logic doesn't make sense to me. Rent a ram or buy a ram, same risk to your own flock that you will be introducing some disease.


A ram lamb is much less likely to carry transmissible diseases than an adult. Getting it straight from a breeder who has a program of eliminating disease from their flock will also make it less likely that you will bring in disease. Such breeders will not send a ram to another flock and then bring it back to their flock, because it is not a good bio-security practice.


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## LibertyWool (Oct 23, 2008)

sheepish said:


> A ram lamb is much less likely to carry transmissible diseases than an adult. Getting it straight from a breeder who has a program of eliminating disease from their flock will also make it less likely that you will bring in disease. Such breeders will not send a ram to another flock and then bring it back to their flock, because it is not a good bio-security practice.


Sheepish, can you be specific as to what disease a ram lamb is much less likely to carry? As far as I can tell, an older ram would have had time to show signs of some of the nasty diseases, like OPP, scrapie, CL and have been culled vs a ram lamb that may not show signs.

If you are buying or renting a ram from the same farm, then the risk will be the same. I also believe if you are buying from a "Breeder" that is in the show system, you are at a much greater risk of brining home transmissible diseases like pink eye, ringworm, soremouth, OPP, CL. I would prefer to buy from a closed flock where animals are not coming and going from the farm, but even with the best bio-security, there are transmission vectors that can not be eliminated (wild animals, peoples shoes/clothing, vet brings something with him/her, neighbors animal gets out, etc).


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## sheepish (Dec 9, 2006)

OPP, CL and scrapie can lie dormant or at least undetected for many years. The tests for CL are not very good and if a sheep has been vaccinated against the disease, the test can show a false positive. We recently had to put down a 7 year old ram who was in very good condition and had no visible lumps but developed a persistent wheezing that turned out, on autopsy, to be CL pressing against the windpipe. This is the first case of CL we have seen in 4 years in our flock. 

Lambs are unlikely to have picked it up CL a symptom-free flock.

A flock can be made OPP (Maedi-visna) free by scrupulous testing and culling, combined with rigid bio-security. 

OPP can be passed through a mother's milk, so you would want to buy from a OPP free flock, if you want to avoid this disease.

I agree about sheep that are in the show system. 

Our bio-security system includes having people who come to our farm from another farm wear clean clothing and our protective boots. Our vets and shearers wear clean coveralls and well-cleaned boots or shoes. If the shearer nicks and animal the blades are cleaned. Needles are not passed from animal to animal during vaccinations. Lambs are weaned from their mothers at around 3 months and are not returned to the main flock until it is time for breeding. There is a lot more to it than that.

We don't get wild ruminants in our pastures. (The coyotes circling our place eat them all.)

Because we don't have animals coming and going, we have never seen pink eye, ringworm, soremouth, spontaneous abortions, etc. in 30 years in our flock. 

Our sheep were certified scrapie-free and we are working toward having the entire flock genetically resistant. Right now about 85% of our animals are genetically resistant. All new lambs born into the flock will be resistant as our rams are homozygous for the critical genes.

I know that there are a lot of shepherds who consider sheep diseases to be just a necessary part of the business. Some will tell you that upfront and you can decide whether top deal with them or not. Others will deny having any disease ever, in spite of no precautions. You can just keep them talking (and talk to people who have bought from them) until you decide for yourself if they are worth dealing with.

There are different ways of raising sheep, and different ways good shepherds handle diseases and the potential for disease.

For ourselves, we don't rent out rams. If we did, it would not be a closed flock anymore.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I would also be afraid of what my ram would pick up from YOUR flock. You might have disease/pest control records available to anyone that would have a ram to rent.


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