Currently lambing 3/4 to pure texel and beltex ewes inside and haven't had a heat lamp on once. The rest of the flock which are texel/mules and 3/4 texel and beltex will have the twins lambed outside from mid April to texel/beltex tups and there usually isn't a lot of bother.
Don't know theres a flock of charmoise out there though
If those ewes had been up here on roots all winter they'd be brown.
My lambing paddocks are the same, but only as they've not had sheep on since November. The one paddock where I had to keep ewes on silage until early-January is as bare as a badger's arse and has quarter of an acre of brown where the feeders were. The difference, on just the other side of the fence, is down to my management.
My point us that if a ewe cannot manage in grass like that without concentrate she needs hung up.I suspect the grass is like that in the lambing paddocks because the ewes have been paddling round on beet fields all winter, resting the grass.
My sheep are also whiter than that, but only because they haven't been jumping all over each other around ring feeders all winter. They stay a lot cleaner on muddy root fields than ever they do on grass fields with silage feeders to congregate round, unless you give them the same ring feeders in the root fields of course.
Bringing sheep that are used to that paradise up here would not add up to happy sheep.To have grass like that here, you'd have to house the ewes from the end of October which would be ridiculous. Or pay 80p to £1 a week for keep. They would still come back in March and bare the place off before the grass starts growing.
I'd be very wary of buying ewes that have enjoyed good ground all their lives, because I've done it before and they take about 2 years to get over the shock of the move
The real question is not who has got most grass at a certain time of year ( try here in most July and Augusts when we resemble the Sahara). The proper question is what determines in this instance a sheep's performance. Is it environment or is it genetics? So 15 years ago when we first went down the route of breeding more functional sheep, we retained a few of our old unsaleable Crosemanor flock ewes, bought Wye Colleges very highly ranking performance recorded Amage flock of Suffolks and another small pedigree Suffolk flock from Devon. These were run alongside our imported NZ Suffolks that came over as embryos. These UK Suffolks were all tupped by pure NZ Suffolk rams. Three years later we sold all the UK Suffolks and their graded up offspring because they could not hack it on a grass only management system ( however good our grass was) All Suffolks in NZ ( and all other countries worldwide) were originally sourced from top East Anglian flocks such as Lawshall and Benacre. So why today are NZ Suffolks so different in their behaviour and body structure to the UK' version as to be almost a different breed. So our experience of running the two types side by side was that our UK Suffolks from the different sources could not milk retain or recover BCS on a grass only diet and consequently their lambs also would not grow as well as their NZ cousins. The 2 big differences we have noticed throughout is that the NZ sheep graze much more aggressively and also had bigger rumens, when compared to our UK sheep. Having a bigger engine under the bonnet is obviously important if your primary aim in life is to convert forage and NOT concentrates into milk and meat. So our experience tells us that it is the genetics and not the environment that counts. The fact that our rams of all breeds can and do thrive in all parts of the UK supports this theory.
I agree 100% Like you we also have large numbers of young stock that also need wintering. If you are going to setstock all your land over winter you will not only have no grass for lambing but as you say you will destroy your pastures by weakening the more productive species by constant and repeated grazing.
Oh Dearie me
apologies for delivering 155 "Unhappy Rams" to 86 sheep farmers throughout the Scottish mainland and islands last year. At least the 52 repeat customers seemed happy enough with their EasyRams.
Don't come with your self righteous bollox to me.Oh Dearie me
You could always try these [emoji22]neighbours Shetland got in, 5x twins, 4x singles, great for outdoor lambing, just I expect a value difference, what do we think? Instead of 3 quarter tex, there is always a price to pay for ease, but that might well be the right thing for some. I think about 500 quid down.
Yeah too many of the Suffolk breeders of yesteryear took the breed down the wrong road.
I'm sorry but saying the environment doesn't count is rubbish. There is a huge difference between farming sheep on arable land where you can grow fodder crops and rotate fields with arable crops, compared to farming on upland wet PP.
