Best ewe Indoor February lambing.

Kingcustard

Member
Your entire rams worked as teasers by the sound of it. If you bung a teaser out beforehand, you’ll bring them forward, cheaply.
Yep, every year I say I will and then forget to get a teaser, I finish lambing with great intentions and before you know it at am back lambing with the same problems that cause me stress every year.

Putting ewes and lambs out today and have a few Cheviot Mules with texel lambs and they look good and lambed themselves, a bit bare as lambs but the next lot are in next week so they are put to the grass. I think they must be 6 crop which says a lot about their longevity. A 4 crop mule is a rarity in these parts haha
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
Yep, every year I say I will and then forget to get a teaser, I finish lambing with great intentions and before you know it at am back lambing with the same problems that cause me stress every year.

Putting ewes and lambs out today and have a few Cheviot Mules with texel lambs and they look good and lambed themselves, a bit bare as lambs but the next lot are in next week so they are put to the grass. I think they must be 6 crop which says a lot about their longevity. A 4 crop mule is a rarity in these parts haha
🤔 can honestly say I’ve never had problems with bare lambs by the texel out of the chevis. The rouge, oh god yes. But they’ve another 6/7 weeks in the oven yet!
 

Kingcustard

Member
🤔 can honestly say I’ve never had problems with bare lambs by the texel out of the chevis. The rouge, oh god yes. But they’ve another 6/7 weeks in the oven yet!
Not bare as in worried, just used to Suffolks that are woolly, they will be fine if the weather stays good, and I would happily have 300 of them on the ground, not as good as the NZ Suffolk but haven't lambed one of them yet and less triplets
 

Kingcustard

Member
Can you buy highlander ewes or do you have to breed them up. With our set up and having cattle I don't have a lot of room for gimmering and so breeding up isn't ideal, and I am too soft with selecting the best sheep. Rather just buy in someone else's efforts.
 
Can you buy highlander ewes or do you have to breed them up. With our set up and having cattle I don't have a lot of room for gimmering and so breeding up isn't ideal, and I am too soft with selecting the best sheep. Rather just buy in someone else's efforts.
I can't recall seeing any advertised for sale. I suspect that as with other breeds if you spend 20 years selecting for good traits you will get there. However for a quicker fix you need to look elsewhere.
 

Kingcustard

Member
Do Innovis sell them from their multiplier flocks. I was approached to be a multiplier for them a few years back when we had blackies but he lost me when he explained you pay 900 for the tup in year 1 and then 600 in year 2..... I starting thinking about ice cream at that point and just nodded politely
 

Jaffa Cakes

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
NI
What sre peoples views on Cheviot Mules, have had a few and they seem to be less trouble than traditional mules, but never had enough to say definitively they are better.

Do they have less triplets with the omission of BFL in the breeding??
What do you class as a cheviot mule?
 

Kingcustard

Member
Looking at Highlanders to be honest, seem like the people that have them get on well with them.

Compared to mules....

How do they do indoor lambing???? .....

How are there bags, mastitis?????.....

How are they on their feet????.....

How are they for prolapses??????......

In a like for like swap with mules onto the same system do they physically eat less feed????.....

Are the wild or docile????.....
 
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Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
What do you class as a cheviot mule?
A traditional BFL crossed onto a Cheviot ewe produced a Cheviot mule. Some people really struggle too grasp that a mule MUST have a BFL sire. A man tried selling me Cheviot mules a couple of years ago. I thought this strange as I know he has no Cheviot ewes. Turns out he’s bought a Cheviot tup and crossed it with his NC mules. I told him 1) they aren’t Cheviot mules, showed him a picture on my phone of my northern sourced ewe lambs.
2) what you’ve done is breed mongrels
3) they aren’t even good mongrels and were worth at most £58 as stores too kill.
He hasn’t spoken too me since… 🤔
 

Kingcustard

Member
I am happy with the low input low output part, just need to lamb inside to give fields a break and be able to break up lambing so I can manage it myself.

Or are some of the other composites better for indoor.

One thing for sure, the f@cking mules are gone, worst year for death and bad bags and prolapses and exploding ewes and feed usage will be through the roof, going to be a lot of pets this year anyway.

Surely something can lamb inside and be fit for poorer grass on turnout and not eat a kilo a day for 3 months or die.

I know indoor lambing is a dirty word but we don't all get grass this side of May, some of us are still farming land too steep to plough and reseed and don't have fields to plant in brassicas.

Just saying likes.
 

Jonp

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Gwent
My SWM mules do ok on poorer pp at turnout. Last winter I spent a fortune bag feeding them and decided I'd have to make a change.
So I weaned them when the youngest lambs were 8 weeks old, held them on the home farm for as long as I could before taking them to their winter tack fields. Didn't feed them anything. Brought them back home 2 weeks before due date. Still out in a pretty bare field but they can come and go into shed as they please for hay. Going to split the doubles off tomorrow and feed a little bit more concentrate as due to start lambing Saturday when all will be in the shed. Ewes are fit but not fat with alot of filling udders.
So far have spent a lot less money this year and the ewes seem in better condition....will have to see how lambing (and the weather) goes now. No prolapses or TLD yet (had 4 last year). Going to feed sugar beet pellets post lambing only if I need to as fields have greened up well over winter.
If I didn't have SWM mules I would go into more expensive Cheviot mules.
 

Kingcustard

Member
My SWM mules do ok on poorer pp at turnout. Last winter I spent a fortune bag feeding them and decided I'd have to make a change.
So I weaned them when the youngest lambs were 8 weeks old, held them on the home farm for as long as I could before taking them to their winter tack fields. Didn't feed them anything. Brought them back home 2 weeks before due date. Still out in a pretty bare field but they can come and go into shed as they please for hay. Going to split the doubles off tomorrow and feed a little bit more concentrate as due to start lambing Saturday when all will be in the shed. Ewes are fit but not fat with alot of filling udders.
So far have spent a lot less money this year and the ewes seem in better condition....will have to see how lambing (and the weather) goes now. No prolapses or TLD yet (had 4 last year). Going to feed sugar beet pellets post lambing only if I need to as fields have greened up well over winter.
If I didn't have SWM mules I would go into more expensive Cheviot mules.
So how have you cut back on the feeding, is it because the lambs were off earlier and the ewes have held onto their condition better?
 
I run 3.5 to the acre on pp, although I've 30 acres of seeds this year due to more sheep, and l have to be off some rented ground for 8 weeks. My ground is to heavy to out winter and feed so they have to come in. The Chev mules have been in since the week before Christmas and the scotch mules + the Suffolk mules have been in since the 8th of Jan. All are doing ok and are due on the 15th of march then once lambed back out obviously but there hasn't been much grass growth on the old turf.
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Kingcustard

Member
I run 3.5 to the acre on pp, although I've 30 acres of seeds this year due to more sheep, and l have to be off some rented ground for 8 weeks. My ground is to heavy to out winter and feed so they have to come in. The Chev mules have been in since the week before Christmas and the scotch mules + the Suffolk mules have been in since the 8th of Jan. All are doing ok and are due on the 15th of march then once lambed back out obviously but there hasn't been much grass growth on the old turf.View attachment 1019973View attachment 1019974View attachment 1019975
That looks a good set up and nice ewes, are the cheviots young ewes, they look pretty fresh
 

Kingcustard

Member
They are all 2yr old coming with their first lambs.
I have pondered another shed to keep ewes of the ground after Christmas, the fields that have had a 2 month break have greened up and there is a bite for the ewes which makes all the difference for some that are a bit light on milk and need out fo the shed
 

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