£200000 Suffolk

[Nithsdale]

I don't disagree, but plenty of the bigger (as well as smaller) breeders struggle with a lack of opinion and imagination and spend a lot of their time watching what others are doing.
My opinion is that you'll never be the first if you're following others.

True. But my point was there's many who look like they're just following the rest but in actual fact they are exploiting the followers

 

[Ysgythan]

As far as commercial rams go if buyers didn't buy overfed trimmed rams then in time people would stop producing them

I can honestly say that if people would have bid up for our commercially produced shearlings in the early 90s our flock would have travelled a different course. They were the surplus to what we needed for our commercials at the time and we kept the poorest ones. We switched over to lambs then. Probably the most annoying thing was a man coming to our lamb pen visibly annoyed that we didn’t have shearlings there that year. We got a 3rd in the carcass competition of the Royal Welsh in 91 with a lamb produced off grass, and NCB reclaimed open cast grass at that. We regularly topped Ffairfach mart with our lambs, again all off grass. Yet selling rams locally was very difficult. Swimming against the tide is OK for a while, but it gets tiring. And I’d be absolutely delighted if as a small flock commercial buyers prioritised things that would reduce not increase my inputs. On a small run you need the individuals to be more valuable to stand a chance and you have to then go with the flow. The things the people bucking the trend all have in common is weight of numbers. We can’t all do that and they are the exceptions, not the rule.

 

[Bald n Grumpy]

I can honestly say that if people would have bid up for our commercially produced shearlings in the early 90s our flock would have travelled a different course. They were the surplus to what we needed for our commercials at the time and we kept the poorest ones. We switched over to lambs then. Probably the most annoying thing was a man coming to our lamb pen visibly annoyed that we didn’t have shearlings there that year. We got a 3rd in the carcass competition of the Royal Welsh in 91 with a lamb produced off grass, and NCB reclaimed open cast grass at that. We regularly topped Ffairfach mart with our lambs, again all off grass. Yet selling rams locally was very difficult. Swimming against the tide is OK for a while, but it gets tiring. And I’d be absolutely delighted if as a small flock commercial buyers prioritised things that would reduce not increase my inputs. On a small run you need the individuals to be more valuable to stand a chance and you have to then go with the flow. The things the people bucking the trend all have in common is weight of numbers. We can’t all do that and they are the exceptions, not the rule.

Agree to a point, the trouble is that those buying grumble about pampered over fed butt ugly rams and then go and buy them because they lack the conviction to change and not do what the neighbours do.
I sell around a dozen yearling Suffolk rams a year, don't bother with market its just a waste of time, I sell to regular customers of farm ( got one who comes a long way to buy) never trim or wash and only shorn when the ewes are done in late may
And if you rattle a bag or bucket at them they run like hell the other way
Numbers don't matter but it takes time to get there

 

[Ysgythan]

Agree to a point, the trouble is that those buying grumble about pampered over fed butt ugly rams and then go and buy them because they lack the conviction to change and not do what the neighbours do.
I sell around a dozen yearling Suffolk rams a year, don't bother with market its just a waste of time, I sell to regular customers of farm ( got one who comes a long way to buy) never trim or wash and only shorn when the ewes are done in late may
And if you rattle a bag or bucket at them they run like hell the other way
Numbers don't matter but it takes time to get there

We didn’t have time. Cull values now would make it a lot easier if we were starting now.

 

[Estate fencing.]

gree to a point, the trouble is that those buying grumble about pampered over fed butt ugly rams and then go and buy them because they lack the conviction to change and not do what the neighbours do.

Iv never understood doing what the neighbors do. I farm for me and me only, that said they do seem to care what I get up to. I run about 15 tups and everyone of them looks better than the day they where bought (not that they looked bad then). I like tups to be strong at 5th tupping when I sell them as culls and they usually go back a breeders. I have no interest in market tups or tups at shows, in fact if we go to a show I won’t even look at the sheep.

 

[Longlowdog]

Show sheep, sale sheep whatever, condition due to feed or trimming wouldn't matter one iota if people buying sheep handled them, took them out of the 8 inches of straw in the pen into the aisle and made them walk up and down. If you get a catalogue pick a big name and put a tick against it, watch it being harassed round the ring to hide its true gait then find you can afford it and it turns out crap then more fool you.

 

[sheepwise]

Show sheep, sale sheep whatever, condition due to feed or trimming wouldn't matter one iota if people buying sheep handled them, took them out of the 8 inches of straw in the pen into the aisle and made them walk up and down. If you get a catalogue pick a big name and put a tick against it, watch it being harassed round the ring to hide its true gait then find you can afford it and it turns out crap then more fool you.

To be fair at the breed sales, most people buying stock tups will take them out and walk them on the bare passage. Maybe not possible at the likes of Kelso.

 

[M-J-G]

If people are thinking seriously about their breeding policy they will do some homework and look into the breeder and their stock, maybe pay a visit pre sale to have a look, particularly if they are thinking of parting with quite a bit of money.

Rocking up at a sale and buying what you've focused on for all of 10 minutes isn't always going to work out, and anyone who would allow this to be any kind of surprise to them is a bit naive to say the least.

Although we breed grass fed sheep I have bought sheep fed for sales and I don't see much issue with them if you buy them in time, so far I've not seen the rams to be any harder to keep or to last any differently to grass fed.

 

[Razor8]

here is how i buy my rams online , all shorn , all fed the same ,point scored for size , wool etc , scanned weighed same day , all recorded data with index on another tab, will be auctioned soon,
could easily be done here and will be the future in some form with online sales becoming the norm ,

which one did you pick??

 

[andybk]

which one did you pick??

there is over 100 offered for sale , keep my pick under wraps till sale day !

 

[neilo]

there is over 100 offered for sale , keep my pick under wraps till sale day !

I hope the other 98 are better examples!
I don’t think we’d have seen many live lambs by either of those, born out in the frost this April.

Whilst understand the idea of showing them shorn bare, do the French buyers not consider fleece cover or quality as an important consideration? That can’t be seen without a fleece.
Maybe it’s not seen as important over there, considering most will be lambing indoors and in small flocks?

 

[andybk]

I hope the other 98 are better examples!
I don’t think we’d have seen many live lambs by either of those, born out in the frost this April.

Whilst understand the idea of showing them shorn bare, do the French buyers not consider fleece cover or quality as an important consideration? That can’t be seen without a fleece.
Maybe it’s not seen as important over there, considering most will be lambing indoors and in small flocks?

lol it doesnt really matter if you like them or not , the point of the post was showing a different way of selling rams , in a more natural condition, over and above the totally out of hand way we have arrived at nowadays at the premier sales , what with using recips ,lambs reared as singles , hitec feeds ,and a trip to the hairdresser a few times a year coupled with lambs and shearlings that never go out except for excercise ,
with regard to the above lambs had a chat to a Irish buyer few years ago in charoles we both laughed at what the uk buyers would make of the practically unfed (by uk standards) shorn ram lambs ,(exactly the comments your making) , absolute culture shock lol , yet many achieving over 400gpd on a measured 2lbs of food a day , 30-70 days, locked in headlock so they cant gobble neighbours food ,scanned loins etc every bit as good as uk stock , what they would achieve on some of these hi tec diets here goodness knows. (you can see the mature shape they achieve on my fb page ) My commercial ram customers most have suff x mules have had no issues lambing outside or out soon after birth and i welcome any comments from them good or bad . I would know in short time if they were having issues as most i count as friends and regularly converse via messenger or whats app . A big plus is they stamp the lambs in mart, there is no doubting they are charollais crosses and often top the market on a regular basis at sedge .

 

[M-J-G]

I hope the other 98 are better examples!
I don’t think we’d have seen many live lambs by either of those, born out in the frost this April.

Whilst understand the idea of showing them shorn bare, do the French buyers not consider fleece cover or quality as an important consideration? That can’t be seen without a fleece.
Maybe it’s not seen as important over there, considering most will be lambing indoors and in small flocks?

I always found lambing in the frost in April to be quite pleasant.

 

[Nithsdale]

Can't beat lambing when the fields are white at first light. You get a lot less problems in that weather

 

[neilo]

I always found lambing in the frost in April to be quite pleasant.

Agreed, but you have to have lambs that can stand it.

I need to know fleece quality/density when I make selection decisions, which I couldn’t do with bare shorn rams.
I couldn’t sell rams like in the above video here, so certainly wouldn’t use them, regardless of performance.

 

[z.man]

Suffolk tip at £200k looks better value to me than a DSS ewe at £20k

 

[sheepwise]

DSS ewe?

 

[z.man]

DSS ewe?

Dutch spotted sheep a female at £20k at Worcester today

 

[neilo]

DSS ewe?

I’m told a Dutch Spotted ewe from Dave Robert’s made £20k today.

 

[Nithsdale]

DSS ewe?

I bet you were thinking Department Social Services had gone into sheep breeding... Weren't you