- Location
- flintshire
What would you use on them, opinions please !!
what tup for texel cross ewe lambs
- Thread starter danpwll
- Start date
harperfarmer
Member
I personally wouldn't lamb them as ewe lambs, but if pushed, Charollais. A proper wedge shaped one with narrow shoulders.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
What are you hoping to achieve from their progeny?
Are you wanting an easy lambing, that you don't have to touch at all, don't drag the teg down, but aren't worth a lot at the end? In that case something like a Welsh Mountain or a Soay perhaps (remember that you've got to look at them every day too
).Are you wanting to have an easy lambing and potential maternal cross females? Then perhaps a Lleyn?
Are you after an easy lambing and a decent, albeit light weight, carcass to sell the following Spring? If so maybe a Beltex or Charmoise Hill?
Or perhaps an easy lambing and a lamb that grows to a decent carcass & weight by the Autumn, but might drag the teg down a little more (ultimately you don't get it out without putting it in somewhere)? In which case a wedge shaped Charollais would hit the spot.
Alternatively, forget the easy lambing and use a Texel or pretty well any native lowland breed.
Guiggs
Member
- Location
- Leicestershire
For a decent prime lamb... Charollais!
Just choose your tup wisely, I'm sure there's a couple of people on here that can help you out
Can't beat them in my mind!
Just choose your tup wisely, I'm sure there's a couple of people on here that can help you out
Can't beat them in my mind!
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What are you hoping to achieve from their progeny?
Are you wanting an easy lambing, that you don't have to touch at all, don't drag the teg down, but aren't worth a lot at the end? In that case something like a Welsh Mountain or a Soay perhaps (remember that you've got to look at them every day too
Are you wanting to have an easy lambing and potential maternal cross females? Then perhaps a Lleyn?
Are you after an easy lambing and a decent, albeit light weight, carcass to sell the following Spring? If so maybe a Beltex or Charmoise Hill?
Or perhaps an easy lambing and a lamb that grows to a decent carcass & weight by the Autumn, but might drag the teg down a little more (ultimately you don't get it out without putting it in somewhere)? In which case a wedge shaped Charollais would hit the spot.
Alternatively, forget the easy lambing and use a Texel or pretty well any native lowland breed.
Would all of the above apply for an outdoor 1st April lambing?
Going to be keeping some of our own Tex cross ewe lambs this year and Char tup sounds ideal but keep reading on here that Char lambs are too soft for an outdoor upland lambing. Are they really that soft or are the woollier headed types hardy enough?
sherg
Member
- Location
- shropshire
Used charmoise on texel x ewe lambs before and it has worked very well they fall out turn around and suck they aren't the quickest growing sheep in the world but the singles will be gone by christmas
harperfarmer
Member
I personally dont think they're that soft. Lamb in Feb, turn out after 48 hours. Dont have any issues really. Although I suppose it all depends.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
The wooly head bit is absolute red herring IMO. A bit of hair on the head, accompanied by a dense fleece and a thicker skin, and you might be onto something.
For hardiness, I would avoid anything in the breed that had thin, red skin and a fleece so tight it was stripping over the shoulders. A lot less like that about these days to be honest, and no bad thing IMO.Admittedly I'm not in an upland situation, but my commercial flock lamb outdoors in April. I don't lose any more Charollais lambs than any other breed, and I only use them on the poorer mothers. I have an increasing number of customers using them for outdoor lambing on upland farms, all of which are reporting good results.
Girlfarmer
Member
- Location
- North Yorkshire
We're upland, lambing texel crosses to texel beltex and also produce some 3/4 beltex and although we lamb indoors we rely heavily on plastic lamb coats to give our thinner coated lambs a few days protection on turn out. If we turned out after 48 hours in February we'd lose a lot of lambs. Even in April we would lose some if we didn't lamb indoors and delay turn out in bad weather Frequently have snow in april here! Uplands just not designed for these thin skinned lambs!
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Don't know if I'd be that keen to lamb Texel x ewe lambs outside anyway? Depends what type of ewe they were out of.
(Just remembered that I will be doing exactly that next spring, admittedly out of pretty self-sufficient Easycare ewes!).
- Location
- Leicestershire
I have lambed my ewe lambs, admittedly they are Lleyns, outside, as well as lambing all my texel crosses outside. I use Charollais' and have never lost anymore lambs than from other breeds. I start lambing last week of March.
Keepers
Member
- Location
- South West
Like it has been said above,
Either something very tiny like a welsh mountain or shetland, will just pop out but wont have much of a lamb to sell
Or a small wedge shaped charollais or a charmoise
I think it must depend on the ewe lamb breed as to how the charmoise cross lambs grow
I put my mule ewe lambs and crossbred ewe lambs to my charmoise tups and as of 2 weeks ago the ewe lamb lambs weighed from 32 up to 38 kilo, so not sure I could keep them till spring, each reared a single and I think they milked fairly well
Very shapely lambs and grew better than I expected out of the ewe lambs
Either something very tiny like a welsh mountain or shetland, will just pop out but wont have much of a lamb to sell
Or a small wedge shaped charollais or a charmoise
I think it must depend on the ewe lamb breed as to how the charmoise cross lambs grow
I put my mule ewe lambs and crossbred ewe lambs to my charmoise tups and as of 2 weeks ago the ewe lamb lambs weighed from 32 up to 38 kilo, so not sure I could keep them till spring, each reared a single and I think they milked fairly well
Very shapely lambs and grew better than I expected out of the ewe lambs
The most important thing is that you do not compromise the future breeding capability of that ewe lamb. As they're Texel crosses, with their awkward pelvises, I would say that an easy lambing sire is essential e.g. Welsh, Lleyn or Easycare. You can get improved Welsh rams that'll produce good lambs, especially out of a Texel ewe. They'll just be later maturing and be with you for a longer period.
- Location
- Welshman living in Nottinghamshire
mark perego
Member
- Location
- in a river
Blue face Leicester ,come out like torpedos
Keepers
Member
- Location
- South West
- Location
- flintshire
We lambed 100 last year tupped to a beltex and charolais, lamb easy and we left them as singles, as 25 were twins, just looking at options as we killed the 2 charlies, were getting on but still got tbe beltex, all other tups are texels, so might get another few charlies as lambs fone well and good shapes, lambed indoors in march, thanks for opinions !!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Are you looking at tupping similar numbers this year? Unless your Beltex tups have some serious mobility issues, surely they'd go at 1:50 ewe lambs easily enough? (Sorry, us ram breeders should be advocating 1:25
)
beltextexel
Member
- Location
- Scorton, North Yorkshire
We ran 3 beltex x Texel tups with 129 3/4 texel hoggs last year and only had 4 geld and the rest were mainly singles. Admittedly its not usually as good as that. We usually have to lamb approx 10% but nothing major.