- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
And God looks down on the righteous
Amen
God loves a trier. They always said I was the chosen one
TexX ewes - which Tup to use?
- Thread starter Nithsdale
- Start date
God loves a trier. They always said I was the chosen one
Boydvalley
Member
- Location
- Bath
I thought he said you very trying. Must of misheard
God loves a trier. They always said I was the chosen one
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
- Location
- Lancashire
No you heard right, he dint av his specs onI thought he said you very trying. Must of misheard
primmiemoo
Member
- Location
- Devon
What's that quotation about the rain raining upon the just, and the unjust, too? ;-)
M-J-G
Member
How early do you target getting your lambs away if you're lambing sharpNot wanting to rub noses, but
Remember this picture from a week past on Friday (12th Feb)
View attachment 942676
Well just to illustrate why I can lamb earlier than many in most 'normal' years, this is it today at 4pm. Just 9 days later
View attachment 942680
The fields which had muck in January have really responded and are looking good.
Mother Nature doing her best to turn it around, just in a nick of time.
7 days to go.
We lamb mid March and usually have about a third to half of lambs away before July and lambs usually all gone before harvest, but I question if we're should just leave them later, but I hate lambs hanging about in the autumn.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Depends on the year. I can get the earlies gone by mid/late July if the weather plays ball. 2018 and 2020 were not good and those lambs were here for a lot longer.
Sell majority of my lambs mid July - September (from the later lambing ewes). Only folks selling lambs quicker around here are very low in the valley on arable ground... and understocked. Aim to be cleared out by Christmas. I do feed the lambs once into October, but they're never pushed hard.
When we had Mules (and nearly 200 less ewes!), lambing started on 25th March and no lamb would be ready to leave before start of August.
hillman
Member
- Location
- Wicklow Ireland
If you don’t mind me asking but are you going to be the feeding ewes with lambs on that , looks shockingly bare for a ewe to perform to her max and rear say twins too their full potential?Not wanting to rub noses, but
Remember this picture from a week past on Friday (12th Feb)
View attachment 942676
Well just to illustrate why I can lamb earlier than many in most 'normal' years, this is it today at 4pm. Just 9 days later
View attachment 942680
The fields which had muck in January have really responded and are looking good.
Mother Nature doing her best to turn it around, just in a nick of time.
7 days to go.
Maybe there is more cover than the photo shows
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
That post is only to show how early and quickly the grass gets moving here. And it's actually late this year... despite me being in Scotland. That field was grazed right upto mid January.
I've got 100acres which have hardly been grazed since November, for lambing on. That field above, the ewes may have access to it over lambing depending on what the weather does (there's trees run up 1 side give shelter)... the group which will lamb nearest that field are still 3 weeks off starting, too.
I will lamb 130 single rearing ewes on a field not much better than that - deliberately, to keep lamb size down for birth.
Sorry if you thought I was implying all my farm was like that - it's just 1, 14ac field that you can see the change in the most and I happened to have a photo I could use to show the grass response.
But I will say, IME, the right ewe can perform on far less grass than many people think. It'd be an absolute disaster lambing on that with Scotch Mules, for example, but having been forced to do it I'd be less concerned with my current ewes. But I can always put silage or hay out too if needed.
I don't often feed post lambing - only doing so 3 times in the last 10 years (2013 after the bad snow at end of March, 2018 after Beast from the East and then 2020 with the early drought).
M-J-G
Member
I don't like the sound of the mules you had, I have friends with mules on a later farm than you appear to be on and their first lambs (Beltex) will be ready at 10 weeks.
I'm not altogether a mule fan but any I've dealt with produce fast growing lambs.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
They need to suit the ground though, like any sheep. On the right farm the do perform well.
They were never that hot here and took an awful lot of feeding. Although funnily enough as I was switching over, the last 100 run as 1 mob separate from the other ewes. Maybe because i had culled all the rubbish out but their final year or 2 they did really well. I remember saying to dad if they'd performed like that a few years earlier I probably wouldn't have started the switch
M-J-G
Member
Too many selected on size and markings and too many blackies with big teats
Most folks I know who have good success with mules breed their own, and in most cases are off Blackies that aren't bred from Show Pony lines and Blues that can survive uplands.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Spot on.
We were not big enough to breed our own Blackies, or all our own Mules... we bred most of our mules but still bought in each year and were buying in all our Blackies.
It seemed backwards to me, and the rubbish mule wedder prices in 2004/2005 made my mind up we needed to change. I could've went for any breed at that point but dad liked the idea of the Lleyn so we tried them. The BFL tups were sold after that first lambing.
The farm has changed since then - cattle are all housed for winter being the biggest. We can run more ewes so probably could breed all our own mules now, but would still be buying in blackies each year. I prefer being almost a closed flock and I can take the ewes in any direction I want
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Beaut of an evening... lovely warm, still day. Into the TexX's just after 5 tonight to find this girl
Not much needing to be said. All healthy, all fed. She's proud as punch... and so am I!
So that's it, we're back here again. Forecast looks good for the next couple weeks so bring on the lambing!
Not much needing to be said. All healthy, all fed. She's proud as punch... and so am I!
So that's it, we're back here again. Forecast looks good for the next couple weeks so bring on the lambing!
Is that your first?? Look three nice size lambs, just need a single in the morning now!! Do you take one off or leave them? I leave them on the April lambing llynes here if there alright unless ones suffering within the first 48hrs, generally they look after them well but they’d be going on to some saved up grass straight after lambing! Lovely day here too an last couple of days, just finished lambing 800 inside an glad to be out the shed an the lambs bowling round in this weather, makes the pain go away quicker 
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Great start! Looks like luck is on your side with the forecast. I'm bringing in the next six heifers to calve tomorrow. The weather is so nice, wish I had the bottle to keep them outside.Beaut of an evening... lovely warm, still day. Into the TexX's just after 5 tonight to find this girlView attachment 943808
View attachment 943810
Not much needing to be said. All healthy, all fed. She's proud as punch... and so am I!
So that's it, we're back here again. Forecast looks good for the next couple weeks so bring on the lambing!
Best of luck for the next few weeks
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Is that your first?? Look three nice size lambs, just need a single in the morning now!! Do you take one off or leave them? I leave them on the April lambing llynes here if there alright unless ones suffering within the first 48hrs, generally they look after them well but they’d be going on to some saved up grass straight after lambing! Lovely day here too an last couple of days, just finished lambing 800 inside an glad to be out the shed an the lambs bowling round in this weather, makes the pain go away quicker
Aye she's the first. Monday is official D-day bit I've usually had 1 or 2 before now. I lift a lamb after I know all 3 have sucked (or I'll lift the empty one if 2 are really full)... but I've not quite got the shed ready or the bottles, tubes etc etc cleaned and ready. So she will keep the 3 tonight and I'll lift it tomorrow.
It’ll all come together before you know it, good luck with it all, be nice if this weather is here to stay!! Got the cows to start calving from the first of March onwards an 30 heifers, then lambing again first of April, nice time of year if you don’t get too much grief with it!!
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Weather is looking like being very settled for the most of March. Hopefully the forecast models are right and I'll be well finished by the time it changes
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
It will no doubt break just in time for my April lambing
