Overbites

[Honey Tree]

I leased a nice ram last year.  Three of lambs born earlier this year had overbites.  All were ram lambs and I banded them right away.  The dams of two of the lambs were related but the dam of one of the lambs was not related to any of the other ewes in my flock so I know it came from the ram.

Those three lambs had very severe overbites that could be spotted from a fair distance.

With many years of dog breeding I recognize a bite defect as a defect and won't breed anything with a defective bite.  I have already decided that if any of these daughters produce a lamb with an overbite that I will take them to the sale yard. 

I checked the ewes lambs to see if any had bad bites.  All teeth met up with the pad.  The teeth of some, however, sat toward the back of the pad.  My question for all of you is, would you consider this a problem? 

[Bigiron59]

Lots of conflicting ideas about parrot mouth.  But like most genetic defects, it's likely that one gene is received from each parent. So your parrot mouth carrying ram , was mated to your parrot carrying ewes . If each parent contributed ,that gene, you ended up with parrot mouth.
The Math says that they will share that gene with 50 percent of their offspring. Unless they are homozygous for that gene( actual parrot mouth) . Then they transmit that defect gene to all offspring. And if the mother transfers a gene, a parrot will result.
Best practice is to never buy one, never keep one , and never use one.
Others will like weigh in with all the banners won with parrots, and it's a market animal.
Here , as with prolaspe, all offending animals are sold as culls.  In my mind, the two problems are usually invloved.
Here at least, lines that produces prolaspe problems, also produces parrot mouth. Culling all invloved rams/ewe solved problem. Keep  daughters, and breed them to others that came from parent lines, that had those issues,. Problem came back.
It runs in some lines esp in Suffolk based sheep, but many popular "Hamp" lines ,have been bred from those Suffolk sheep, and the baggage came along.
Good luck.

[EmsoffLambs]

I am not so sure that parrot mouth is a simple recessive gene. In 16 years breeding I have only had it show up twice. My ewe flock is all very related so I would think if were a simple recessive, it would have shown up more than it has. Regardless, it is still genetic and the ram you used seem to throw a lot of them, so I wouldn't use him again. The lambs will work as market lambs but the would likely not be able to graze well so that would be another reason to not keep any for breeding. As far as the teeth lining up toward the rear of the dental pad, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. As the teeth grow and are replaced by adult teeth they should line up better and this shouldn't interfere with their grazing ability.