Aberfield cross highlander

R.Dutchman · Jun 19, 2020

neilo said:
Don’t worry, I’ve been to Kelso a few times. It really was an experience (the night before in Kelso town much more so?). I went up with a friend a few times, we took a trailer and carted back the Suffolk ram lambs that several local farmers bought to go back to the Cotswolds, Kelso being the place to buy them after all . They were all cracking looking lambs to be fair, but NOT ONE ever made it to the next season. A crazy way to go on, and it opened my eyes to a lot.

I've also been to Kelso a few times... The high index Blackhaugh Suffolk I bought last year has out performed any Charollais I've on my cold wet farm!

Sheepfog · Jun 19, 2020

R.Dutchman said:
I've also been to Kelso a few times... The high index Blackhaugh Suffolk I bought last year has out performed any Charollais I've on my cold wet farm!

Blackhaugh have a fantastic pen of tups that do the job.

neilo · Jun 19, 2020

Norfolk Hill Farmer said:
Haven't they introduced a new breed called the easy dam ( maternal sire ) I don't mean ther maternal Suffolk or Texel. From the picture on the website ,looks just like an Aberfield.

@easyram1 was very quick to point out that the Easydam was not like a Highlander the other week. I wonder how quick he’ll be to distance them from the Aberfield.?

rhifsaith · Jun 19, 2020

Owain2014 said:
[emoji23][emoji23] what would put on them?

Definitely not highlanders.
Wouldn’t the Aberfield Sr work in that situation? Aberfield with some Lleyn thrown in.

Owain2014 · Jun 19, 2020

Yes thought of the SR but not sure if they would give anymore hardiness. Why not the highlander?

rhifsaith · Jun 19, 2020

Tried them years ago when we were asked to supply lambs to M&S. They just seemed to have more problems than other sheep.

Go and see some before trying too many anyway. And no offence to Neil but he’s keeping them on a farm in Maldwyn. You’ve heard of the saying in Welsh. “Mwynder Maldwyn”? That’s not like your typical Welsh sheep farm

easyram1 · Jun 19, 2020

Owain2014 said:
Yes thanks the easy fan could be an option although I don’t know a lot about them if I’m honest, can anyone shed any light on them please?

EasyDams is the name we have given to our new maternal composite "breed". As many of you know we have been selling for many years maternal Suffolks, Sufftexes and particularly Texels. The EasyDams have been sourced from 3 specific maternal composite breeders all based in Southland at the bottom of the South Island. Obviously I am keen to highlight the differences we offer because unless I can do that I will not sell any and we need to sell rams to pay our bills. But trying to be serious my understanding is that a Aberfield is a BFL X Texel and an Aberfield SR includes some lleyn as well. The Highlander is another maternal composite from NZ but @Global ovine explained the differences with ours in detail elsewhere.
So what are we expecting. Best to quote what our source breeders do. To enter the flock a ewe lamb needs to lamb as ewe lamb. Needs to be 40Kgs when tupped: needs to recover body condition and reach 60 Kgs as yearling and then have a mature size of 65-68Kgs. Scanning 190

neilo · Jun 19, 2020

rhifsaith said:
Tried them years ago when we were asked to supply lambs to M&S. They just seemed to have more problems than other sheep.

Go and see some before trying too many anyway. And no offence to Neil but he’s keeping them on a farm in Maldwyn. You’ve heard of the saying in Welsh. “Mwynder Maldwyn”? That’s not like your typical Welsh sheep farm

I did say that mine weren’t being tested on a hill, but neither do they see a shed in the winter, or for lambing as in the OP’s case.

A photo of my dry Highlander hoggs taken this morning. These were the ones that I either considered too small to tup, or didn’t conceive for whatever reason:

And a couple of older ones being used as ET recipients currently:

tr250 · Jun 19, 2020

@heyfarm

Sosb79 · Jun 19, 2020

We swapped onto Highlanders in 2012, first we were buying in draft ewes from a big local flock, but have recently switched to breeding our own highlander replacements. Whilst we are not a hill farm we use the sheep to graze poor quality pasture and scrub that is not suitable for my Dad's dairy cows. Having made the switch we would not swap back, we have found them to be efficient grass converters that require minimal shepherding, we lamb some indoors early and some outdoors later on, and pretty much always manage to produce above 1.75 lambs off each ewe. They also handle well in races and pens. We cannot claim that they are completely free of problems, at the end of the day they are sheep! All being said we are glad we made the switch, the Highlanders have increased the productivity of our poorer quality pasture.

Owain2014 · Jun 27, 2020

Thanks all, nice looking ewes @neilo, where do you get your tups from?

neilo · Jun 27, 2020

Owain2014 said:
Thanks all, nice looking ewes @neilo, where do you get your tups from?

Thanks. First ones came from @RobP, then bred a couple myself from them, then went back to Innovis for some new blood two years ago. Not overly impressed with theirs, so kept a couple back again myself now.
Dabbled with a Lleyn and a NZ Texel a few years back, but not inspired to have more, so back to Highlanders.

I’ll be keeping 2 homebred ones back in reserve while I do my shedding experiment, so I can bring them back to normality if needed.

Owain2014 · Jun 27, 2020

So what’s the shedding experiment if you don’t me asking, looks like I’ll either be going with an easy dam or highlander through innovis unless any other ideas pop up

neilo · Jun 27, 2020

Owain2014 said:
So what’s the shedding experiment if you don’t me asking, looks like I’ll either be going with an easy dam or highlander through innovis unless any other ideas pop up

Trialing a few Exlanas just now. Having shorn those Highlander hoggs last week, and turned them back out with the barren Exlanas, there’s bugger all to choose between them visually tbh. I do have 20p worth of wool off the Highlanders though.?

Owain2014 · Jun 27, 2020

I’d like to try an exlana tup but I’m just worried how they will look if sold with aberfield lambs

Bob the beef · Jun 27, 2020

Bit late to this conversation, but for the last 2 years I have crossed half my Aberfield gimmers with a highlander. Very impressed so far. Was a wee bit of an experiment in year 1 but impressed enough to go again . The resulting ewe hoggs scanned 138% this year and I can honestly say I never had to lamb 1.

Owain2014 · Jun 28, 2020

Thanks @bobthebeef, where did you get your tups and how did the lambs turn out compared to your aberfield lambs?

Bob the beef · Jun 28, 2020

Owain2014 said:
Thanks @bobthebeef, where did you get your tups and how did the lambs turn out compared to your aberfield lambs?
[/QUOT
Bought the tups at the Innovis sales. The highlanders are from Keith Stewart at Kelso, and the Aberfields from John Scott at Fearn.
The lambs are grand weathers easily making 20 kg R3L. Kept all the ewe lambs, and tipped around half of them. We don't lamb until mid April, so only ewe lambs at 45 kg Mid September get the chance of the tup. The rest all head off to wintering at that time All maternal tups are bought on lambing ease and maternal figures first, and growth and confirmation second.

Purposely picked highlander tups without topknots though. My one sellout to vanity

Owain2014 · Jun 28, 2020

Great thanks @bobthebeef. Sounds good to me, I normally buy our aberfield tups through innovis using figures only and then get them delivered. They have been a bit up and down with some being too much BFL types. So I thought this year I’ll go down Aberystwyth sale. I’ll be on the look out for a non topknot tup or two also.

Al R · Jun 28, 2020

What is your ewe size with them if their 45kg in September and born in April? I was finding the AF x welsh were going 85+ and AF x TexelX 95-110 all had bred first year and after the first year I made sure I adopted lambs onto the AF’s so they had to rear 2 to try and keep mature weight under 85kg

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