Maternal sheep

ford4000

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
north Wales
I use Aberfield tups over lleyns, no problem with reaching mating weight for most of them as hoggs, most of the males sold by mid August, having been born mid March onwards.
Lambing percentage of the Aberfield shearlings this year was lower than the lleyns, but no triplets or quads. Still enough twins from them, easily equalling our mules. These are the 90 I'm keeping this year, most of them having been on our poorest grazing since birth
20170821_155112.jpg
 

pgk

Member
Any of your new Texels looking like shedding their wool? I have used a fully shedding Texel on one of my Easycare families with good results, as long as you watch what you keep.
Clean bellies and around rump but no obvious wool slip to see. Not sure if we will keep any half breds as looking at putting at least 100 easy cares to texels and if phone calls this year are anything to go by hope to sell bulk of ewe lambs as breeders. Only had 12 to sell this year but could have sold them 10 times over. Expect if we use one of the new longer high index rams we may be tempted to keep a few to cross back to shedder
 

easyram1

Member
Location
North Shropshire
Wouldn't a Lleyn warrant something with a bit more shape, for fat lamb production? A Lleyn, like most maternal bred sheep, is hardly the best carcass to start with after all.:scratchhead:
Not sure why your aversion to NZ Texels of which you have had limited experience has now been extended to NZ Suffolks of which you have as far as I am aware none. Pics are of Easy Suffolk sired lambs ex Lleyns in Devon. Aberdeenshire and similarly bred Hoggs ( retained for breeding)
7.16 Lleyn ewes with EasySuffolk lambs. P Aubrey South Devon..JPG
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in the Scottish Borders. NZ Suffolk sired lambs look OK to me but then I would say that wouldn't I.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Not sure why your aversion to NZ Texels of which you have had limited experience has now been extended to NZ Suffolks of which you have as far as I am aware none. Pics are of Easy Suffolk sired lambs ex Lleyns in Devon. Aberdeenshire and similarly bred Hoggs ( retained for breeding)View attachment 569570 View attachment 569572 View attachment 569576 in the Scottish Borders. NZ Suffolk sired lambs look OK to me but then I would say that wouldn't I.

Are their legs short or is the grass long?

Do you shear these?
 
Not sure why your aversion to NZ Texels of which you have had limited experience has now been extended to NZ Suffolks of which you have as far as I am aware none. Pics are of Easy Suffolk sired lambs ex Lleyns in Devon. Aberdeenshire and similarly bred Hoggs ( retained for breeding)View attachment 569570 View attachment 569572 View attachment 569576 in the Scottish Borders. NZ Suffolk sired lambs look OK to me but then I would say that wouldn't I.


The top ones belong to Peregrine?
 

Green farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Length, find they can go short easily and length is key in ewes to produce fat lambs from grass I find. After that think I go for the 3rd type you outlined somewhere, they big leggy show types with huge heads I avoid like the plague.

So, collected the new lleyn today. Got one with decent length and width without being excessive. Found it I had gone that bit longer, I was loosing the shape in the rear and they were getting abit leggy and narrow. So will put him to this years ewe lambs. In the coming years the offspring will be 75 % lleyn, so next on the list is sourcing a terminal ram for the butchers.
 

scottish-lleyn

Member
Mixed Farmer
So, collected the new lleyn today. Got one with decent length and width without being excessive. Found it I had gone that bit longer, I was loosing the shape in the rear and they were getting abit leggy and narrow. So will put him to this years ewe lambs. In the coming years the offspring will be 75 % lleyn, so next on the list is sourcing a terminal ram for the butchers.
who did you buy your tup from?
 

Joe

Member
Location
Carlow Ireland
So, collected the new lleyn today. Got one with decent length and width without being excessive. Found it I had gone that bit longer, I was loosing the shape in the rear and they were getting abit leggy and narrow. So will put him to this years ewe lambs. In the coming years the offspring will be 75 % lleyn, so next on the list is sourcing a terminal ram for the butchers.

Fair play if I'm thinking who it is cant go wrong, any pictures of him?

Wonder were you d source a good terminal ram :whistle:
 
Early days but the best are very smart, not too big with a nice wedge shape and decent backend. By and large they've been good mothers and no mastitis issues up to now. Would be more prone to lameness, though got rid of the worst of them.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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