A common question asked is the age of mating for Fullblood Dorper and White Dorper Maiden ewes and the expected results. After checking on most of the available websites, there were many claims but no facts so I have correlated the following results.
2007 drop Dorper and White Dorper ewes. Ewes were split into 2 groups and artificially inseminated on the 17th or 28th March (Group1) and the 18th March (Group 2). One week after the AI program each group was run with 4 “backup” rams up until the 1st May 2008 (6 week period). All ewes were scanned 4th June 2008.
| Age at Mating | 11 months | % | 10 months | % | 9 Months | % | Total | % |
| Mated (Group 1) | 30 | 166 | 196 | |||||
| Pregnant | 25 | 144 | 169 | 86% | ||||
| Dry | 5 | 22 | 27 | 14% | ||||
| Mated (Group 2) | 50 | 18 | 43 | 111 | ||||
| Pregnant | 39 | 15 | 30 | 84 | 76% | |||
| Dry | 11 | 3 | 13 | 27 | 24% | |||
| Mated (Total) | 80 | 18 | 209 | 307 | ||||
| Pregnant | 64 | 80% | 15 | 83% | 174 | 83% | 253 | 82% |
| Dry | 16 | 20% | 3 | 17% | 35 | 17% | 54 | 18% |