- Location
- West Wales
Best breed of ewe for lowland/indoor lambing
- Thread starter Devil's advocate
- Start date
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
My sheds store straw/machinery
Then lamb one batch late Feb, sterilise & do another batch in April
Then back to machinery until haytime & harvest when the sheds are filled again.
- Location
- Fife
I was more thinking the same ewes every 6 months.
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Too hard on ewes, every 8 months used to be trialed with & most packed it up than was Finn/Dorsets
- Location
- West Wales
Quite a few breeders are on the Cornell star system BUT from what I’ve heard the ewes and lambs live on creep all year basically
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Quite a few breeders are on the Cornell star system BUT from what I’ve heard the ewes and lambs live on creep all year basically
Pointless
Those are exactly the issues I have with texels. Why do butchers always want sheep that are not easily looked after.
- Location
- Fife
There are some people doing every 6 months off grazed forage.
- Location
- Shropshire
Is it like Holsteins on big litres folk blame the cows or the system when there not capable of giving the attention to detail to get the very most out of an animal ( I’m not a Holstein man)
- Location
- Cheshire
By all means give it a try. But my mate who ran Dorset’s said that the 3 crops in 2 years was very achievable but you burnt a lot of sheep out quickly. The only ewes that stood the pressure were the single beaters which funnily enough he didn’t want too keep replacements from. And that was on an good arable unit so constant clean reseeds and never over stocked with plenty of grain if needed. As he got older he swapped too crossbred ewes lambing in spring and wishes he’d done it years ago. The margins were just too tight on the 3 in 2 system and 1 crop would always be selling at the wrong time of year when the butchers didn’t want spring lamb.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
When I went to look round Harper Adam’s with Dad, in 1985/6, they ran a flock lambing 3x in 2 years and we’re proud to show us all. The ewes looked knackered, despite all being fairly young, and we both thought it was a good demonstration of what not to do.
While I was there, or soon after, they dropped them in favour of a Sring lambing flock of Lleyns.
Have tried 3 in 2 and 2 in 1. If you've got very good genetics, extremely good forage/pasture, both are achievable.
However, finding sheep from so called aseasonal breeds that are actually aseasonal/year round breeders is not easy.
I also feel if you want to do this forage based you need a ewe which gets (relatively) fat pretty easy and can keep that bcs.
The grazing available to me is not good enough to reach such productivity. I know several breeders over here who lamb charmoise 2 a year, flevolander (idf x finn) 3 in 2 and Maasduin (shedder composite) 3 in 2.
From these three imho only charmoise would be able to be truly forage based over here. Charmoise x Rouge (our rouges are much more maternal then the Brittish) with added shedding genes might be nice sheep.
Or maybe finn x lacaune, would have the milk the get them growing soon and wean them asap to have mom back into good bcs.
However, finding sheep from so called aseasonal breeds that are actually aseasonal/year round breeders is not easy.
I also feel if you want to do this forage based you need a ewe which gets (relatively) fat pretty easy and can keep that bcs.
The grazing available to me is not good enough to reach such productivity. I know several breeders over here who lamb charmoise 2 a year, flevolander (idf x finn) 3 in 2 and Maasduin (shedder composite) 3 in 2.
From these three imho only charmoise would be able to be truly forage based over here. Charmoise x Rouge (our rouges are much more maternal then the Brittish) with added shedding genes might be nice sheep.
Or maybe finn x lacaune, would have the milk the get them growing soon and wean them asap to have mom back into good bcs.
I wonder how many ewes would take the tup a month after lambing!!
One in a thousand perhaps, and that would be the one that didn't lamb, but pinched a lamb which perished because she didn't have any milk.
Apart from that, it could be a sound system.
PS. Lambing here is down to the last handful, on the same once-a year breeding system tried and tested over the last 10,000 years.
- Location
- Fife
Good that your system works for you. How does your gross margin/ha look without subs?
With the correct genetics and feeding I think there'd be a lot more ewes than 1/1,000.
- Location
- Fife
Are you doing any work towards the eating quality of your lamb? Is anyone in the UK?
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
The Focus Prime that Innovis have with Waitrose is specifically produced for high imf I understand. AHDB's RamCompare is measuring imf and shear force in progeny of all rams used I believe.
All sheep that have been CT scanned, certainly in recent years, have had imf measured, so their is the ability to select for an increased level, if their was a market demand making it worthwhile.
At the other end of the scale, Beltexes are commanding premiums in Northern marts, and have next to zero imf.
CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
I’ve lambed sheep in jan / feb then again in September/ October , it is do able but hard on the sheep, and scan % is affected. Also a lot of year round breeders won’t actually get in lamb at any given opportunity, whatever month you choose. Young sheep also take a while to get into the system. Also it can make it hard with other management issues or grazing management etc. Like most of these things, a lot of the folk extolling it’s virtues have never had anything to do with it at all.
kfpben
Member
- Location
- Mid Hampshire
I lamb North Country Mules inside with Charollais tups. High scanning, easy lambing, up and suckling well, good mothers, lambs in demand live, dead or store.
Have trialled a few variants- Tex x mules, Dorsets, Lleyns, a Texel tup and I always come back to the Charollais across an NC Mule. It’s not very ‘modern’ but it works for me with grass spread out all over the place.
Have trialled a few variants- Tex x mules, Dorsets, Lleyns, a Texel tup and I always come back to the Charollais across an NC Mule. It’s not very ‘modern’ but it works for me with grass spread out all over the place.