In sheep farming what does 'terminal sire' mean?

Question

(in the context of management and breeding)

Answer 1

Charoit has the right idea, just a little confused about what a sire is. A sire is the buck of the breed, not the ewe. The addition of a third breed as a terminal sire to a two breed rotational cross system can further enhance the system. In this rota-terminal system, approximately 50% of the sheep herd is mated to the terminal sire breed (different breed than used in the two-breed rotation) with the resulting offspring all marketed (no replacement females retained from resulting mating). The other 50% of the sheep herd operates as a two-breed rotation as outlined above. The two-breed rotation functions to produce all replacement females for the herd.

Answer 2

its when the sheep farmer breeds so many sheep that he can afford to live in a castle and have a butler.

one day after his 5 course dinner, he retires to the drawing room to sit by the fire and do the times crossword.  after a while he gets stuck so he rings for his butler and asks "jeeves help me with this clue here.... airport building...... 8 letters....T-something-something-somethi...

the butler looks at him and replies.....

"terminal, sire"

Answer 3

u r g*y and welsh

Answer 4

I was intrigued by this question as I had never heard the term before and I live in a sheep breeding area.

It is quite simple really. Maternal Sires are ewes which are bred to supply replacement breeding ewes. Terminal Sires are ewes which are bred to provide lambs for the proverbial chop, meat, butchers etc.

There are two different systems. Static terminal-sire crossbreeding system and Rotational/terminal systems. Have a look at the link if you're interested.

Answer 5

That;s when the daddy sheep has already "passed on".  It's a mixed bag of euphemisms, terminal sire and passed on, but they both mean the same thing.

Answer 6

Regardless of the species of animal, the term is the same.  It's a known fact that when two animals (sire and dam) of different breeds are crossed, the offspring is going to exhibit heterosis, commonly known as hybrid vigor.  That offspring will exhibit traits stronger than either parent, whether it's vigor, number of lambs produced, increased milk production, rate of growth, etc.

When producing slaughter lambs, many producers like to use crossbred ewes because of the value of heterosis.  They are then bred to a purebred ram (the terminal sire) that usually has desired traits that the crossbred ewes may not have.

In other words, the terminal sire is the father of the animals that go to slaughter, not the father of the mothers of the slaughtered offspring.

Answer 7

the most profitable way to farm sheep is , first have a good maternal breed,  this means a female that has two lambs, lots of milk to feed them with, ease of lambing, hardy and easy to manage, to get this to me is the perfect cross of two breeds, to this end, you take the scoch black face female, use a border leicester male to breed her, from this union you keep the female lambs, this gives you what is known as a first cross,and the best traits of both breeds come out in these ewes, you them breed these ewes with what is called a terminal sire, this could be a suffolk, dorset, texel, or any meaty breed, the resulting lambs from this union are used for meat, that is why the sire (suffolk, dorset, texel) is called a  terminal sire, because its the male that is used to get lambs for meat  



http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/sheep/publicati...