Breeding a good hill ewe

[jamesy]

I lambed ShetlandXCheviots and Shetlands and I've yet to have an easier time doing an outdoor lambing.
The dropped Texel and Beltex/Texel lambs and stuck to them like glue.

I don't doubt that some will have bred with no selection and ruined some hobby flocks, just like has happened with Highland cattle.
But if anyone is bothered enough to do their homework there are populations of Shetlands that haven't been ruined by smallholders.

Used to have Shetlands & Shetland Cheviots. Great mother’s, terrible to round up, keep in!

 

[M-J-G]

Typical outfit - NCC hill type, Suffolk x lambs

UK Suffolk at that!

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How are you possibly managing with no NZ genetics?

 

[jamesy]

How are you possibly managing with no NZ genetics?

Struggling on! I get my Suffolk tups from an excellent source

 

[M-J-G]

Used to have Shetlands & Shetland Cheviots. Great mother’s, terrible to round up, keep in!

These weren't bad to keep in but they were set stocked, they did love a fight with the dog!

 

[M-J-G]

Struggling on! I get my Suffolk tups from an excellent source

Yes, your man keeps a extremely functional Suffolk.

 

[DanM]

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1st cross May born Hogg with a March born lamb.

Still got plenty wool on the first cross?!

 

[unlacedgecko]

Still got plenty wool on the first cross?!

Most are clean around the tail head, with many opening on the neck also.

Dry hoggs (which is almost all of them!) Are peeling better. 3 or 4 almost clean shed.

Will start culling for shedding once I get up to numbers from F3 onwards.

 

[DanM]

Most are clean around the tail head, with many opening on the neck also.

Dry hoggs (which is almost all of them!) Are peeling better. 3 or 4 almost clean shed.
View attachment 955320

Will start culling for shedding once I get up to numbers from F3 onwards.

why easycare and not Exlana as a shedding cross?

 

[unlacedgecko]

why easycare and not Exlana as a shedding cross?

Budget.

I started with 10 easycare tup lambs for £1500. And a performance recorded tup from @Woolless

Total spend on stock in year 1 was less than £13,000. That was for the maternal 550 ewes and 11 tups, as well as 8 stud ewes and and inverdale tup from @MJT. And included haulage.

Since then I've added another tup from @Woolless, 2 aged Exlana tups, another artic of Shetlands and 50 stud ewe lambs (non recorded easycare bred up from texel mules).

 

[Old Tip]

Easycare

A few of this year's March born lambs

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They look good types

 

[unlacedgecko]

They look good types

Spoke to the chap that bought my store lambs recently. He’s killing them now at 48kg lw. Not bad from ewes which will be 25-35kg lw.

 

[Bill dog]

Did you visit Shetland to choose the ewes? Cracking sheep by the way!

 

[Old Tip]

Spoke to the chap that bought my store lambs recently. He’s killing them now at 48kg lw. Not bad from ewes which will be 25-35kg lw.

Yep they know how to rear a lamb, we have a few different primitive breeds and the lambs will be bigger than the ewes at weaning. All these kg/ha boffins would come in their pants if they did the sums

 

[unlacedgecko]

Yep they know how to rear a lamb, we have a few different primitive breeds and the lambs will be bigger than the ewes at weaning. All these kg/ha boffins would come in their pants if they did the sums

I have done the sums

 

[unlacedgecko]

Did you visit Shetland to choose the ewes? Cracking sheep by the way!

Thank you. Yes I do. They have sales in the autumn in Lerwick.

 

[Bill dog]

Well good luck with them. I’m much smaller scale but I tupped 50 Cheviots and 50 easycare ewes last year with a tup from @Woolless . So far so good , lambing away a treat , 900-1200 ft up in the northern Gobi desert, or Lauderdale in the borders as it used to be called when it rained !

 

[hill shepherd]

Yes, I've been shocked at some of the Swaledale scan percentages quoted on here. Far too high, surely?

Some of the scans quoted aren't from swales in the hills though, our pures tupped on hill ground usually do about 120/125 percent which is enough

 

[shearerlad]

Completely off on a tangent here

@Bill dog were you at the Lauder herds supper a few years ago?

 

[Stw88]

Some of the scans quoted aren't from swales in the hills though, our pures tupped on hill ground usually do about 120/125 percent which is enough

Trouble is alot of tups are bred from the ones on the lower better going which is putting prolificy into the breed. If we got 35/40 pair out of 200 ewes once over it was canny, now there pushing 100. Not as many to go back to the fell and too many for inbye. They only come off the fell the day before the tups go in and are back out after 6 weeks.

 

[Bill dog]

Completely off on a tangent here

@Bill dog were you at the Lauder herds supper a few years ago?

Yep, I hadn’t long moved in , it was a good way to meet the neighbours! I don’t think I made too much of an ass of myself
Were you there?