useless suffolk mules

paul&mandy · Mar 28, 2014

Just started lambing so far near on all of them been bloomin useless mothers. From not licking there lambs peeing off with only one, laying on them etc. Only been going 2 days and got a thousand to go.
Is it the suffolk in them?
Grrrr
Paul

Poorbuthappy · Mar 28, 2014

Er, yes!
Always got fed up with letting lambs suck too personally.
Hardly ever have to with more maternal breeds.
Not all suffolks are like it (just most!) - a few breeders have selected for maternal traits. Most notably, kiwi strains are better - with @easyram leading the way!

easyram1 · Mar 28, 2014

paul&mandy said:
Just started lambing so far near on all of them been bloomin useless mothers. From not licking there lambs peeing off with only one, laying on them etc. Only been going 2 days and got a thousand to go.
Is it the suffolk in them?
Grrrr
Paul

I really feel for you if you have that many to look forward to. I can't or won't comment on UK Suffolk X Mules and I don't want to sound a smarta-- but I can say that we use lots of NZ Suffolk ( EasyRam ) X Mules as recipients and also lamb the same as ewe lambs and they are really good mums. Out of 300 embryo lambs born indoors since mid Feb I think we had 2 lain on. We would have a large number of clients throughout the country specifically buying our EasyRam Suffolks to breed their own Suffolk X Mule ewes and they would all say that the resulting females are outstanding mothers . A final point we are just starting to lamb about 250 EasyRam Suffolk ewes outside. I guess this puts us in a very small minority group and my conclusion is that if you want to use a Terminal X Mule ewe you need to ensure that the terminal part of this equation has some maternal qualities of its own. This is the main reason why we have also introduced Maternal NZ Texels ( EasiTexels ) but people will only be lambing their first crop of Hoggs off these recently imported this spring.

Jackson4 · Mar 29, 2014

yip

you forgot the cow size teats which are to big to suck.

harperfarmer · Mar 29, 2014

I'd put it down to bad luck, as we find them to be pretty good mothers! Always the odd one or two that are complete and utter b**tards! But then we moved to Suffolk x Mules from Scotch Half-breds, and they were in a different league in terms of being appalling mothers!

jemski · Mar 29, 2014

I am not a fan. Getting rid of the last of mine this year. Lazy bolshy mothers, lazy lambs. Guaranteed if I have to plug on a stupid one, it's a Suffolk x. And boy do they take a long time to figure it out!

paul&mandy · Mar 29, 2014

These are ewes we contract shepherd for. Lambing mainly outside they can be a right pain.
We just started our own flock of mules hopefully these will be a lot better maternal mothers.

sam1 · Mar 29, 2014

plus black face black arse. always shi**y

Guiggs · Mar 29, 2014

harperfarmer said:
I'd put it down to bad luck, as we find them to be pretty good mothers! Always the odd one or two that are complete and utter b**tards! But then we moved to Suffolk x Mules from Scotch Half-breds, and they were in a different league in terms of being appalling mothers!

Did you find scotch h/breds that bad? My neighbour thinks they're great!
I have about a dozen ewe lambs I am going to try this year and was thinking of breeding some to sell but im not so sure now!

chris elk · Mar 29, 2014

I have some mixed in with my north country mules, not keen so far, greedy, terrible feet, mucky bums, lazy lambs , shall I go on !! Have had a successful adoption on one today though ! Think I shall be sticking to my Mules !!

exmoor dave · Mar 29, 2014

never had any problem with suffolk mules, 2/3 of my flock are suffolk mules, great ewes, just never put them to a suffolk tup cause then you are asking for trouble with dopey lambs!

using hamp or sufftex tups = cracking lamb

going to try cha's next i think

course my suffolk mules are out of exmoor mules.............king of the mule world

harperfarmer · Mar 30, 2014

Did you find scotch h/breds that bad? My neighbour thinks they're great!
I have about a dozen ewe lambs I am going to try this year and was thinking of breeding some to sell but im not so sure now!

Well I must admit I wasn't that old when we moved away from them, probably 15 or 16, but from what I remember and from what the old man tells me they were expensive to buy, didn't have enough lambs and were bloody awful mothers. They didn't milk terrifically well, as theaves they were scatty as hell, would clear off with no lambs, maybe one if lucky! So always walking lambs back to them.

They only had two redeeming features, the first being that the Suffolk x Scotch half bred ewe lambs are possibly my favourite sheep ever! Admittedly they can go a bit on the fatter side, but my god they have some terrific lambs when put to a continental tup, milk well and are good mothers (really hard to work out why when looking at the genes from both sides!!).

The second redeeming feature was that they were worth a lot to kill, but as I always say to my dad, that was a completely backward reason to buy a breeding ewe!?? So we now run about 500 Suffolk x mules lambing in February, all put to Charollais tups, creep the lambs hard and aim to be selling in about 5/6 weeks from now and normally have every thing sold by end of July/early August before we start combining. Don't think we'll be returning to the Scotch half-breds any time soon, don't let me put you off, I just might not be a future customer!

harperfarmer · Mar 30, 2014

Oh and I forgot to mention, the only ewe we've ever had 5 lambs out of was a Scotch half-bred. We put her in an extra large pen and she slowly, methodically, lay on each and every bloody one! So she got turned out with no lambs but a big red dot on her back and went for kebabs shortly after!

Tractor happy · Jun 28, 2016

exmoor dave said:
never had any problem with suffolk mules, 2/3 of my flock are suffolk mules, great ewes, just never put them to a suffolk tup cause then you are asking for trouble with dopey lambs!

using hamp or sufftex tups = cracking lamb

going to try cha's next i think

course my suffolk mules are out of exmoor mules.............king of the mule world

I am thinking of trying Hampshire on Suffolk mules what are the lambs like?

focussed · Jun 28, 2016

I put a texel on suf x mule this year... Nice lambs... Need a couple more tups to go on suf x, any recommendations? Suftex?

exmoor dave · Jun 28, 2016

Tractor happy said:
I am thinking of trying Hampshire on Suffolk mules what are the lambs like?

Pros
Very good strong hardy lambs at birth,
Decent get up and go
Put weight on like lead off grass alone, in fact creeping might be counter productive if they just get fat.
I found that they just kept growing no matter what was thrown at them- poor springs, nemo etc.
Seemed good on their feet, we had texels at the same time who were god awful for scald.

Cons
Fat fat and more fat! Over fat at lowish weights, of course some went to good weights with out running to fat. But we were picking at 39 - 40kg and getting alot of red marks for over fat.
Shitty bums, not as bad as Suffolks, but worse than white face breeds.
Although they sold well early in the season (live), as more lambs came on the market, the Hampshire slipped down the demand ladder.
Woolly heads..... not good in store market.
Proper scatty mentality

obviously, this is only based on the tups we had,
We changed to sufftexs and prefer them,
Also have moved to deadweight selling, we'd be crucified for over fat Hampshire now.

Please don't think I'm doing the Hampshires down, they are a cracking breed with a good forward thinking breed society but just not the breed for us........ Well except for the 2 Hamp X char tups I have!

exmoor dave · Jun 28, 2016

focussed said:
I put a texel on suf x mule this year... Nice lambs... Need a couple more tups to go on suf x, any recommendations? Suftex?

Sufftexs are good, just be careful picking the tups.

andybk · Jun 28, 2016

exmoor dave said:
never had any problem with suffolk mules, 2/3 of my flock are suffolk mules, great ewes, just never put them to a suffolk tup cause then you are asking for trouble with dopey lambs!

using hamp or sufftex tups = cracking lamb

going to try cha's next i think

course my suffolk mules are out of exmoor mules.............king of the mule world

they will be fine , suff x mule users will make up 70% of the rams we sell , and many have been coming back for decades , dont buy too big a tup , go for shape though ,

Tractor happy · Jun 28, 2016

exmoor dave said:
Pros
Very good strong hardy lambs at birth,
Decent get up and go
Put weight on like lead off grass alone, in fact creeping might be counter productive if they just get fat.
I found that they just kept growing no matter what was thrown at them- poor springs, nemo etc.
Seemed good on their feet, we had texels at the same time who were god awful for scald.

Cons
Fat fat and more fat! Over fat at lowish weights, of course some went to good weights with out running to fat. But we were picking at 39 - 40kg and getting alot of red marks for over fat.
Shitty bums, not as bad as Suffolks, but worse than white face breeds.
Although they sold well early in the season (live), as more lambs came on the market, the Hampshire slipped down the demand ladder.
Woolly heads..... not good in store market.
Proper scatty mentality

obviously, this is only based on the tups we had,
We changed to sufftexs and prefer them,
Also have moved to deadweight selling, we'd be crucified for over fat Hampshire now.

Please don't think I'm doing the Hampshires down, they are a cracking breed with a good forward thinking breed society but just not the breed for us........ Well except for the 2 Hamp X char tups I have!

I only been keeping sheep a few years and slowly building up to a hundred Suffolk mules, had a char ram last year on them but seems to end up with very big lamb 45kg plus sell some live weight and some to butcher seem to get hammered in the live weight for being light and not always finished down to my lack of experience the one that go to the butcher are saying the a bit big and would like them fit at 19 kg dw so thought I would try something different the fat fat bit is a worry

neilo · Jun 28, 2016

Tractor happy said:
I only been keeping sheep a few years and slowly building up to a hundred Suffolk mules, had a char ram last year on them but seems to end up with very big lamb 45kg plus sell some live weight and some to butcher seem to get hammered in the live weight for being light and not always finished down to my lack of experience the one that go to the butcher are saying the a bit big and would like them fit at 19 kg dw so thought I would try something different the fat fat bit is a worry

Get a decent Charollais then, rather than a big, late maturing type (I'm guessing

)? A Charollais on a Suffolk Mule is hard to beat IME, for a tight skinned, easy fleshing lamb, unless you had a very poor type of Charollais.

useless suffolk mules

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