Any ive seen looked terrible sheep
Highlander ewes
- Thread starter charlie77
- Start date
Aspiring Peasants
Member
- Location
- North Pennines
Yes but mules are very consistent, that is one of the reasons they are so popular
Farmer Keith
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
They’re not really in competition with the mules to be fair, they’re a sheep to run as an alternative to the horned hill breeds.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Are they? Or are the ones someone buys at auction that have been drawn into level lots with similar heads ‘consistent’?
If they, as another mongrel, are consistent, then why do different runs get sold in different sales?
- Location
- North wales
It’s a broad spectrum with mules like all sheep and it depends on your system like all sheep.
- Location
- North wales
Also mean buyers need to consistently buy replacements to I don’t know many people who don’t have to buy in a ruck of replacements each year. Tbh I have nothing against the mule it’s just not the ewe for me, and I certainly don’t feel threatened by its existence like mule breeders and buyers do about other composite breeds.
Farmer Keith
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
The mule it’s self is a perfectly good sheep, a big sheep but highly productive, the issue for me when we were breeding them is that you need so many sheep on the ground just to breed more mules the whole system becomes woefully inefficient.
My highlanders and Cheviot x highlanders live on the same hill that the horned ewes lived on but rather than producing mules to then produce prime lamb they cut out the middle man.
My highlanders and Cheviot x highlanders live on the same hill that the horned ewes lived on but rather than producing mules to then produce prime lamb they cut out the middle man.
irish dom
Member
Well the rams feet themselves were atrocious. They all got foot problems whilst the ewes along with my other sheep were fine. I just got really mediocre ones I think but it put me off them
Aspiring Peasants
Member
- Location
- North Pennines
There's certainly a difference between mules from different breeders and you go for the ones you like. I'm not wanting to start a "discussion" about mules vs these new breeds. I was just trying to illustrate that if you wanted, you could buy mules, replace with similar types as you go along and produce a consistent product. Farming with mules isn't for everyone but you know what you're getting and you won't get a wide variation in performance. I have hardly any mules but I have farmed them in the past and if I decided to change from what I do now, I would be confident I could buy mules and know what I'm getting. It could be a disaster trying one of these new heavily marketed breeds, as you've seen
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
There's certainly a difference between mules from different breeders and you go for the ones you like. I'm not wanting to start a "discussion" about mules vs these new breeds. I was just trying to illustrate that if you wanted, you could buy mules, replace with similar types as you go along and produce a consistent product. Farming with mules isn't for everyone but you know what you're getting and you won't get a wide variation in performance. I have hardly any mules but I have farmed them in the past and if I decided to change from what I do now, I would be confident I could buy mules and know what I'm getting. It could be a disaster trying one of these new heavily marketed breeds, as you've seen
My point was that a consistent group of mules is made up of those selected for a type at a sale. If you took 1000 Highlanders (or any other mongrel) and picked them into groups of 200 by type, would each of those groups be described as consistent?
Most Highlanders will be in a closed flock situation though, so the whole group or most of them) gets kept, rather than a small selection of similar looking animals being bought. Those few flocks that I know of that breed their own mules in house certainly have all sorts amongst them, just the same.
From what I've seen of Highlander (& other mongrel) rams, there is considerable variation in type amongst them, with some certainly being some shockers IMO. If you are buying the rams then you can pick a certain type (more 'Texely' in my case) amongst them, but that's obviously not as easy if you are just ringing the selling company and asking them to send you some.
Aspiring Peasants
Member
- Location
- North Pennines
What I was trying to get at, was not so much whether they all look the same but rather what they would be like to farm and manage. You know what you'll be getting.My point was that a consistent group of mules is made up of those selected for a type at a sale. If you took 1000 Highlanders (or any other mongrel) and picked them into groups of 200 by type, would each of those groups be described as consistent?
Most Highlanders will be in a closed flock situation though, so the whole group or most of them) gets kept, rather than a small selection of similar looking animals being bought. Those few flocks that I know of that breed their own mules in house certainly have all sorts amongst them, just the same.
From what I've seen of Highlander (& other mongrel) rams, there is considerable variation in type amongst them, with some certainly being some shockers IMO. If you are buying the rams then you can pick a certain type (more 'Texely' in my case) amongst them, but that's obviously not as easy if you are just ringing the selling company and asking them to send you some.
- Location
- North wales
Most the mules ran through my local market are running ewe lambs bought here there and everywhere and sold as shearlings ,so if you were looking to buy 300-400 shearlings they would be most likely from 6-7 different flocks. So I don’t think anybody would have a clue what they’re getting. One thing that is guaranteed is bringing in disease.
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Aspiring Peasants
Member
- Location
- North Pennines
You need to get to know who is farming them, how they are farmed, a bit of basic livestock knowledge. Anyway as I've said I don't want to start a mule vs whatever argument. I was talking about consistency and with these new breeds, people seem to get very different results. You know what a mule will do for you, it could be an expensive mistake with these new breeds
- Location
- North wales
It could be an expensive mistake with any breed like I said earlier it’s a broad spectrum, for example a welsh ewe some are white faced some have red faces , some are 70kg and scan at 160% some are 40kg and scan at 120% it’s still the same breed regardless but there’s variation within the breed.
- Location
- Scottish Borders
Do you ever just keep a nice ram lamb back that suits your needs for your highlander ewes, or buy in from Innovis?My point was that a consistent group of mules is made up of those selected for a type at a sale. If you took 1000 Highlanders (or any other mongrel) and picked them into groups of 200 by type, would each of those groups be described as consistent?
Most Highlanders will be in a closed flock situation though, so the whole group or most of them) gets kept, rather than a small selection of similar looking animals being bought. Those few flocks that I know of that breed their own mules in house certainly have all sorts amongst them, just the same.
From what I've seen of Highlander (& other mongrel) rams, there is considerable variation in type amongst them, with some certainly being some shockers IMO. If you are buying the rams then you can pick a certain type (more 'Texely' in my case) amongst them, but that's obviously not as easy if you are just ringing the selling company and asking them to send you some.
The dark Lord Hulme’s easydam yokes have left me nice lambs, and I’ll be sore tempted to keep a tup lamb or 2 back next year.
Just don’t tell him !
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Do you ever just keep a nice ram lamb back that suits your needs for your highlander ewes, or buy in from Innovis?
The dark Lord Hulme’s easydam yokes have left me nice lambs, and I’ll be sore tempted to keep a tup lamb or 2 back next year.
Just don’t tell him !
I have several times, always twins born unassisted and reared on their dams without any issues (or they're rejected and culled). They are just crossbreds/mongrels that have been stabilised (to a degree). Once your ewes have several generations of those genetics then yours are as 'pure' as what Innovis (or others) can supply, and possibly better if from a decent base flock.
The large stud flocks are recording them and selecting for improved performance, so you should see a gain from buying in their genetics, but you can easily select for functionality and good maternal ability in your own flock.
- Location
- Scottish Borders
Good, and surely anything that is reared on home turf and performs well in your own routine is better than some abershowpony type ram that’s munched sweeties all winter on its deck chair by the south coast !!
easyram1
Member
- Location
- North Shropshire
I despairDo you ever just keep a nice ram lamb back that suits your needs for your highlander ewes, or buy in from Innovis?
The dark Lord Hulme’s easydam yokes have left me nice lambs, and I’ll be sore tempted to keep a tup lamb or 2 back next year.
Just don’t tell him !
I thought that after dealing with you for so many years I had at least got you half trained/sensible. So though you may scoff our one and only aim in our ram breeding business is to make you Willie more money. We do this by continually breeding better and better sheep on a yearly basis. In turn we do this by using better rams on our flock and in turn retaining better ewes. So what do I mean by better? As you know we use Signet and SIL for our recording but since all new rams come from NZ we mainly rely on SIL who have all the background data on our imported rams. So in my mind 'better' means rams that have either higher Maternal or Terminal Indexes. Our maternal index which applies to all EasyDams is calculated using figs for Capped reproduction ( capped because twins are rewarded over singles but triplets are penalised over twins); lamb survival: lamb growth: Adult size (too big is penalised): meat yield Figs for all these traits are added to give an overall index. This index can be used to compare rams between different flocks and different rams within the same flock and you can also calculate where these rams rank amongst all rams in a given year in NZ. So we know that most of the 6 EasyDam rams imported last year, all of which have ram lambs on the ground this year have better ( higher) performance figs than those rams imported in 2018. So why would you want to use a ram who looks 'nice' for a cost of say £120 when you could buy a proven superior ram for £750 ( for a top grade ram lamb)? Back of fag packet calcs say that using him 1x as a RL and 4x as an adult sheep will give you at least 850 lambs = 425 ewe lambs. Retain best 60% = 250 ewes into flock x 4.5 lambings each = 1125 lambings x 160% weaned lambs = 1800 lambs. So 1 ram costing an 'extra' £630 will produce daughters to produce 1800 lambs ie 35p/lamb. Oh yes and not only are these rams mainly in the top 5% of all NZ maternal sheep 3 of them are in the top 2%, 5% and 10% for Terminal worth respectively and 3 of them are in the top1% for terminal survival. Having worked this out I must be selling them too cheap but as you are such a good customer we are happy to continue supplying you at this reasonable price.
- Location
- Scottish Borders
My experiment work then @easyram1 .
I dangled a little bit of opinion on my hook, wondering if you would see it, or if you were too busy delivering tups to the sheep breeders of the uk !
Boom , what a bite !
To quote the late Michael Winner “ Calm down dear !”
Hopefully your blood pressure will descend, but it takes me 30 minutes to rattle up to my top field with the tractor, and it left me some time to catch up on TFF , and prod the bear!
Coffee etc available should you wish when you’re passing on your tours !
Yours kindly,
Your long standing customer !
I dangled a little bit of opinion on my hook, wondering if you would see it, or if you were too busy delivering tups to the sheep breeders of the uk !
Boom , what a bite !
To quote the late Michael Winner “ Calm down dear !”
Hopefully your blood pressure will descend, but it takes me 30 minutes to rattle up to my top field with the tractor, and it left me some time to catch up on TFF , and prod the bear!
Coffee etc available should you wish when you’re passing on your tours !
Yours kindly,
Your long standing customer !
easyram1
Member
- Location
- North Shropshire
I was trying to be amusing and not my normal grumpy self so I hope you took no offence. but your post did give me too good a chance to grab (even though I am officially banned by the rest of the team from TFF (or certainly banned from getting angry) I was also feeling a bit 'Gung Ho' having spent the day at the locally held Suffolk Society National Sale in Shrewsbury. Great day spent catching up with old or very old friends. When I told Philippa that So and So had really aged I was advised to look in the mirror. Anyway lots of happy memories particularly the terror of going into the sale ring praying that someone/anyone will at least bid on your ram to the reserve price - that bit I certainly will never miss or forget. The other good thing from my viewpoint is that no one in that part of the ram producing market ( and indeed the same applies to the Texels) is remotely interested in what we do or ever likely to copy us - which is great. After your mega order last year we will certainly enjoy calling for a coffee even if there is none of your hard earned cash available this yearMy experiment work then @easyram1 .
I dangled a little bit of opinion on my hook, wondering if you would see it, or if you were too busy delivering tups to the sheep breeders of the uk !
Boom , what a bite !
To quote the late Michael Winner “ Calm down dear !”
Hopefully your blood pressure will descend, but it takes me 30 minutes to rattle up to my top field with the tractor, and it left me some time to catch up on TFF , and prod the bear!
Coffee etc available should you wish when you’re passing on your tours !
Yours kindly,
Your long standing customer !