usually breed mine off 3/4 texel ewes with an unrelated texel tup, run them with the commercial flock and they last forever!!
premature ageing in texel tups.
- Thread starter hillbilly2nd
- Start date
What's wrong with us as an industry if we need making to sort out problems that cost our businesses? I know there are plenty out there who don't give a stuff but they are the ones who will slip through the net anyway.
Nice to have a ram thread that's not bashing the good old Suffolk again
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
hillbilly2nd
New Member
Definitely. Ram prices should be doubled, at least…
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
How do you suggest handling a 1000 ewe flock that tests for Mv on a compulsory scheme, then finds a third of them are positive?
hillbilly2nd
New Member
tups are over supplied , chasing too few sheep farmers and too few ewes.theres only a trade if supply is less than demand, first rule of business, keep it scarce,for too many the tup business is just a hobby, a farmer,s ego trip, topping the sale with overfed sheep.
My understanding is that mv is not harmful to humans if sheep enter food chain, it does however effect the health of a flock and therefore its profitability. What to do in a 1000 head flock with a third positive...could cull out the third and try and get mv free or just let mv run its course and except losses? I don't know as I haven't had to face that(yet). What would you do?
Pistonbroke
Member
My dad was very successful with Herefords back in the day and he always said the hardest time to find a good bull was when the market was full of them. Everyone keeping anything with a White face and a pair of knackers
- Location
- Fife
Same problem now, anything with at least 1 ball is a breeder. No it's not, get the culling pliers out!
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
trouble is the hi tech feeds and trimming can make a silk purse out of a sows ear , all the young bloods think if your good at feeding / trimming a pedigree sheep then thats all there is to pedigree breeding ,
to breed something that gives a high % of easy finished lambs on most ewes and doesnt die at the first stressful event and is structurally sound is a damn hard job to get right .
- Location
- Cheshire
That wouldn’t help anything. Ram prices need too halve for a couple of years too stop people keeping all theseDefinitely. Ram prices should be doubled, at least…
tup lambs and flooding the markets with 4th grade tups that should have been killed on March as lambs. Unfortunately the ram job is cursed by small holders who make a packet outside farming. Buy a little place in the country, read the FG and decide the real money is in breeding tups. (It must be, farmers are all paying 2-5 thousand for stock tups in there.) they buy show type sheep, stuff them with corn, buy a tup (2 types here, UU the overfed donkey that’s no use commercially or buy one for £300 and expect too breed good stock tups with it) stuff that with corn. Produce lambs, (again 2 types, either corn from a day old or never give them anything so they end up with badly bred, badly fed animals) then take them too all the local breeding sales “oh it’s by Sportsmans Echo or similar” the fact that any self respecting farmer shouldn’t dream of buying the bloody things and they should be put straight in the slaughter pen at the sale just doesn’t compute until they get in the ring and can’t get a bid above £150.
Sorry! But the tup job really winds me up at times!
too many people pissig about instead of just relying on the commercial producers!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Each blood test is about a fiver, with two clear tests, 6 months apart, needed on the current SAC scheme. So £10k just to test a 1000 ewe flock clear, assuming you have no positives. If you then cull those and retest the rest, that’s another fiver each, on top of the loss in value of the positive ewes (£180 shearling - £80 cull value?).
Difficult one, and unless you have a closed flock, or a source of accredited replacements, anything bought in is just as likely to bring it in again.
Me? I tested the commercial flock twice, when I reestablished it in 2008, and have kept it accredited since.
If I found it in that hypothetical 1000 ewe flock, I would decide based on the value of the flock’s genetics and whether I thought I could replace them easily. If was a flying flock of mules, I’d be tempted to take the hit and restock completely. It would probably drive me to establishing a closed flock so that it was less likely to happen again, as I know someone that did just that with a 2000 mule flock.
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
yea and often the breeders are retired pilots / doctors / solicitors and never bred a commercial lamb in their lives , just dont know why you commercial men dont have a chat with breeders pre sale you might know if they are bullThat wouldn’t help anything. Ram prices need too halve for a couple of years too stop people keeping all these
Unfortunately the ram job is cursed by small holders who make a packet outside farming. Buy a little place in the country, read the FG and decide the real money is in breeding tups. (It must be, farmers are all paying 2-5 thousand for stock tups in there.) they buy show type sheep, stuff them with corn, buy a tup (2 types here, UU the overfed donkey that’s no use commercially or buy one for £300 and expect too breed good stock tups with it) stuff that with corn. Produce lambs, (again 2 types, either corn from a day old or never give them anything so they end up with badly bred, badly fed animals) then take them too all the local breeding sales “oh it’s by Sportsmans Echo or similar” the fact that any self respecting farmer shouldn’t dream of buying the bloody things and they should be put straight in the slaughter pen at the sale just doesn’t compute until they get in the ring and can’t get a bid above £150.
Sorry! But the tup job really winds me up at times!
ers,you want to see the commercial men droole on sale day at sedge over a big fat tup ,so its not all breeders fault
Thanks for that neilo....I now understand the problem a little bit more. How do you ensure that an mv free closed flock remains that way ie you missed one in the original tests, do you do a certain number of random blood tests every year? Is mv increasing in the national flock? Do you think, if it is, that a government supported testing scheme would help? I think they cull without compensation in NI ...but they are mv free and it only applies to imported stock that avoids the quarantine rules. How would we get mv free without it being financialy ruinous?
- Location
- Cheshire
It does begger belief. I stick too the same breeders 90% of the time. Will try others if I can’t afford the ones I want. Usually I end up regretting not going the extra £100 on the one I really wanted. But where do you draw the line when you’re just producing finished lambs?yea and often the breeders are retired pilots / doctors / solicitors and never bred a commercial lamb in their lives , just dont know why you commercial men dont have a chat with breeders pre sale you might know if they are bull
you want to see the commercial men droole on sale day at sedge over a big fat tup ,so its not all breeders fault
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
That extra 100 will be his cull value or more if trusted against £20 at the knackers
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
You won't miss one in the original tests as they are checked against your flock records, which have to be kept as a requirement of the scheme (as is a legal requirement now anyway). As we have no non-mv stock here, we are on 3 yearly testing (if you have non-accredited stock on the same holding it's every two years, plus a number of culls each year). Smaller flocks have to test everything at that routine test, but larger flocks do a number that give a statistically reliable result, which is 135 adult ewes in our case. Any incoming accredited sheep have to be tested within 6 (or 12?) months of arrival and all service sires have to be tested each year. All fences have to be double fenced between other stock and different handling equipment used (or disinfected between). You can't bring sheep home from a non-mv (ie: fat lamb) sale at the market.
There are a lot of costs involved, direct and indirect, and I guess there are enough leaks that unscrupulous breeders could lie about movements etc. It really wouldn't be worth getting accredited, unless you could gain a sales premium from doing so. An annual screening test (on a bunch of thin culls?) would be a relatively inexpensive way of checking to see if you have a problem though, then decide if it was worth investigating further.
- Location
- Cheshire
Trouble is when you get too £750, I still think it’s enough… although we pushed the boat out and bought one at £820 from one of our regular suppliers this year. Don’t regret it, he’s a beast of a tup and hasn’t lost an oz over 6 weeks of tupping
So worthwhile in smaller high value pedigree flocks and also at the start of establishing a larger, long term, closed commercial flock?
M-J-G
Member
To a point, yes, but with production costs where they are, I'm not sure there is scope to pay much more these days than we could back then.
I had a similar conversation with a fellow cattle breeder, when he said he was told that the price of the top 10 calves is what people should spend on a bull.
I siad I wouldn't be keen to spend 10 grand on a bull to use on commercial cows, and I asked him what he valued his top 10 weaned pure Charolais calves at and would he spend 10× that on a bull.
He laughed and said no way