Skintagain
Member
- Location
- Perched on the Pennines
I think a middle ground would be super
Swaledale sheep sick of
- Thread starter Out in the Wilds
- Start date
What is the problem with Swales I always find them at their best at this time of year they lamb themselves, milk well and are excellent mothers. They are docile enough to read their tags outside while recording them unlike some other hill breeds. would agree with some of the comments but as a hill sheep they have little exposure to foot problems due to low stocking density on hill ground. I think there are a lot of breeders that breed show sheep but there are still breeders that breed on functionality.
A bit of hybrid vigour won’t do them any harm, but then you get the blackie horns and belly. There are decent swale tups about with colour and power.
Probably a better bet, they started off the same sheep until the societies fell out. Just get a bit more wool but modern dalesbreds have better skins. You can get decent bodied Swales and a few folk performance recording now as well. Blackies less prolific as well
Stw88
Member
- Location
- Northumberland
Following up from lambing time heres how the cheviot x swales are doing. Lambs are back to the cheviot so 3/4 chv.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
A wise move
Did just that 2 years ago, you can tell the blackie cross just by the width of them, much more powerful sheep. Just put them back on the swale tup again for now and they seem alright. Ran the blackie tup twice as an experiment and will see how they go compared to the pure swales before we get another, most likely plan will be a blackie every 3 or 4 generations to get more power into them.
How do they go on for lamb numbers compared to the swale?
- Location
- Northumberland
You got some good buildings to convert into houses there.....................Nice sheep as well.
Stw88
Member
- Location
- Northumberland
Off the top of my head the Cheviot’s were 135% scanned and the Swales 142% I think. They were all shearlings.
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Big guts are heavier and need more energy to carry them around. They can also aggravate skeletal weaknesses.
They also tend to drop with age, and cause more snowballing in snow storms.
More belly leads to mules more likely to get stuck on their backs. Also drop with age with more weight to carry round.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Whats frith?
- Location
- Cheshire
Steady… we don’t want too see 90% scanning as standard…
She look's like she will defend those lambs to the death!
- Location
- Cheshire
Edit… your death. Not hers…
