Crossing over to the dark side!

[CopperBeech]

Maybe you have a different idea of what constitutes a good carcass, but in my book, ‘not getting any O grades’ is setting the bar pretty low.

I apologise if I appear to have offended you for daring to say my Exlanas have been a disappointment. I invested a good bit in them, as you know, and clearly had high hopes for them, particularly their maternal ability.
I would question the management too, as everyone else enthuses about them so much, but they have been managed exactly the same as my other forage fed, outdoor lambing, white faced, medium sized sheep, yet have fallen behind at every hurdle so far. I am as perplexed as anyone as to why that should be the case, but was thanking my lucky stars in April, that I didn’t have a whole flock of them!

So pray tell - what grades do your pure highlanders give ? All U and E I suppose ?

For me, and maybe I’m wrong but a maternal breed which I can breed pure, where the females are excellent maternal ewes abs the pure whether lambs will do me R and U grades with a few Es ....... is doing pretty well. Especially if I can sell probably half my lambs at weaning at 10-14 weeks of age.

Anyway I’m hungover and grouchy so be gentle with me

 

[neilo]

So pray tell - what grades do your pure highlanders give ? All U and E I suppose ?

For me, and maybe I’m wrong but a maternal breed which I can breed pure, where the females are excellent maternal ewes abs the pure whether lambs will do me R and U grades with a few Es ....... is doing pretty well. Especially if I can sell probably half my lambs at weaning at 10-14 weeks of age.

Anyway I’m hungover and grouchy so be gentle with me

I don’t bother recording them separately to anything else, just slaughter tags as they go. I suspect they would be mostly R & U grades (only had one O grade last year - an Exlana entire ).
I don’t however try to claim they are ‘good’ confirmation… They are OK for maternal whethers imo, and certainly better meat than the Exlanas I’ve had here so far.

Your management is clearly far better than mine if half the lambs are gone at 10-14 weeks, depending on the weights of course.

 

[CopperBeech]

I don’t bother recording them separately to anything else, just slaughter tags as they go. I suspect they would be mostly R & U grades (only had one O grade last year - an Exlana entire ).
I don’t however try to claim they are ‘good’ confirmation… They are OK for maternal whethers imo, and certainly better meat than the Exlanas I’ve had here so far.

Your management is clearly far better than mine if half the lambs are gone at 10-14 weeks, depending on the weights of course.

I didn’t claim they had ‘good’ conformation at any point in this discussion. I referred to them as having “some shape and length to them”. I didn’t say excellent shape, amazing grades or terminal arses. But I shall be sure to check with you re terms of referral next time

I wasnt trying to big them up with regard to their shape, just merely suggesting that they can be bred pure now to give you a greater selection of females and males very worth killing. Without having to put a terminal over them.

I don’t kill anything lighter than an 18 kilo carcass by choice and preferably 20kg.

 

[ISCO]

We started crossing over to the dark side 2 years ago and have both easycare and exlanas. Our easycares have a bit of shape as they were bred from blackface and have a touch of Charolais in them. Not sold any pure wethers as this is the first year we have bred pure so will find out
lambed outside we are happy with their mothering ability compared to our wooly ewes. Having said that, our original ewes are just mule and mule/texel and have not.had too much selection on mothering ability so maybe nothing special to compare to.
We will be continuing our journey to the dark side. We have another 50 easycare ewe lambs ordered this year afterwhich we should be able to breed our own replacements.

 

[SteveHants]

Maybe it's just my circle, but those emojis signify a desire for kinky sex with the person you're addressing...

This only proves that we are living in an increasingly context free world.....

 

[Barleycorn]

Really green, wool worth F all, and government giving massive grants for insulating houses with plastic, what a stupid situation!

 

[SteveHants]

Do they have to leave the tail on?

Why wouldn't they? Helps the sheep deal with flies themselves.

 

[Bones]

Do they have to leave the tail on?

No,

 

[pgk]

iirc @Woolless has shedders with a good chunk of Texel blood in. A good place to start?

Ram we had off woolless last autumn is part texel and is one of the cleanest shedders we have used, also shapely enough to appeal to the White Knights. Now also stays in the fields in which he is put

 

[Woolless]

Ram we had off woolless last autumn is part texel and is one of the cleanest shedders we have used, also shapely enough to appeal to the White Knights. Now also stays in the fields in which he is put

You can't say you weren't warned

It's just selective breeding of which most of those engaging in this discussion are capable. Some make the grade, some don't. Some tick all of the boxes but find another to jump out of...

 

[Bury the Trash]

No,

Arguably the answer should be Yes, because there is no ( or very low risk of) potential "welfare problem" from blowfly strike in the tail swish area.

 

[neilo]

On the long tails.... A couple of the shedders I bought still had long tails. In a wet winter on a beet field, when they had a bit of wool cover, they were noticeably dirtier over their backs, where they swished the balls of mud that had collected on their tail ends.
All clean now of course, but the few long tailed ones didn’t look pretty in the winter here.

IF I continue the shedding experiment then I will certainly continue to ring tails.

 

[Estate fencing.]

I would really like to try a few, has anyone got any ewe lambs for sale in the Gloucestershire area? I like to try before I convert to tupping the lot.
Iv got a flock of 100 lleyns that I shepherd bred up from Texel cross ewes, they shed there tails and necks, how many generations would it take to fully shed if I put exlana on them?
Also how are people getting on selling store lambs out them? all the wether and reject ewe lambs are sold in September as store lambs and would like to continue doing this.

 

[unlacedgecko]

I would really like to try a few, has anyone got any ewe lambs for sale in the Gloucestershire area? I like to try before I convert to tupping the lot.
Iv got a flock of 100 lleyns that I shepherd bred up from Texel cross ewes, they shed there tails and necks, how many generations would it take to fully shed if I put exlana on them?
Also how are people getting on selling store lambs out them? all the wether and reject ewe lambs are sold in September as store lambs and would like to continue doing this.

Those ewes will take 1-2 generations to fully shed.

I sold Shetland x shedder stores last year. SellMyLivestock was the platform I used.

 

[Northern territory]

Those ewes will take 1-2 generations to fully shed.

I sold Shetland x shedder stores last year. SellMyLivestock was the platform I used.

What’s the idea with shetlands, I understand they are easycare but do they make you any money. They were making a fiver a head in store market a couple of years ago. ( not a criticism just interested to know )

 

[unlacedgecko]

What’s the idea with shetlands, I understand they are easycare but do they make you any money. They were making a fiver a head in store market a couple of years ago. ( not a criticism just interested to know )

They're cheap, so cheap I can cull very hard and not worry about the cost. I buy out there cull ring so they're cheap. I also buy the ugly stock, so they're even cheaper. Horns, coloureds I don't care.
They're generally good on their feet.
They have good maternal abilities.
They have high levels of intramuscular fat, so are good eating.
They partially shed already.
25-35kg lw I can stock them at 2-4 times that of "proper" sheep.

Last year stores went in Nov for £50/hd.

4 mules/ac weaning 7 lambs, each going fat for £90 = £630/ac income.

13 Shetlands/ac weaning 15 lambs, each going store for £50 = £750/ac income.

They're a good base ewe for my breeding program. They're scab and MV free.

Downsides are low litter size and poor shape. I'm breeding in inverdale and myomax to mitigate both of these.

 

[Estate fencing.]

They're cheap, so cheap I can cull very hard and not worry about the cost. I buy out there cull ring so they're cheap. I also buy the ugly stock, so they're even cheaper. Horns, coloureds I don't care.
They're generally good on their feet.
They have good maternal abilities.
They have high levels of intramuscular fat, so are good eating.
They partially shed already.
25-35kg lw I can stock them at 2-4 times that of "proper" sheep.

Last year stores went in Nov for £50/hd.

4 mules/ac weaning 7 lambs, each going fat for £90 = £630/ac income.

13 Shetlands/ac weaning 15 lambs, each going store for £50 = £750/ac income.

They're a good base ewe for my breeding program. They're scab and MV free.

Downsides are low litter size and poor shape. I'm breeding in inverdale and myomax to mitigate both of these.

Very good. Seams like you have put a lot of thought into the job.

 

[Northern territory]

They're cheap, so cheap I can cull very hard and not worry about the cost. I buy out there cull ring so they're cheap. I also buy the ugly stock, so they're even cheaper. Horns, coloureds I don't care.
They're generally good on their feet.
They have good maternal abilities.
They have high levels of intramuscular fat, so are good eating.
They partially shed already.
25-35kg lw I can stock them at 2-4 times that of "proper" sheep.

Last year stores went in Nov for £50/hd.

4 mules/ac weaning 7 lambs, each going fat for £90 = £630/ac income.

13 Shetlands/ac weaning 15 lambs, each going store for £50 = £750/ac income.

They're a good base ewe for my breeding program. They're scab and MV free.

Downsides are low litter size and poor shape. I'm breeding in inverdale and myomax to mitigate both of these.

Thanks, interesting to see how others do it.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Very good. Seams like you have put a lot of thought into the job.

Thanks. I sat down a few years ago and wrote down the characteristics I wanted in my ewe. Then I began breeding towards that. It's a long term project, but I enjoy it.

On the right that's a May born F1 hogg. On the left is her March born tup lamb. She's done it all off 100% grazed forage. No drench, no bolus, no lick buckets, no concentrates.

That's the sort of genetics I want to perpetuate.

High levels of Shetland in the F1s mean very few have taken the tup. But I'll persevere. The F2s should be better, and F3 onwards will be inverdale.

 

[unlacedgecko]

These are my original tups. Bought as tup lambs from a lleyns based flock, they're all twin weaned. I specifically selected hair type coats as I believe these will get me to a clean shedding tup faster.

Commercial flock is very low input, with a low capital spend on initial stock.

Much (much!) more has been spent on the stud flock. But the same hard culling policy applies.

Jump out the handling system = cull
Repeatedly walk through the electric fence = cull
Need treatment for lameness (1 strike and you're out) = cull
Require assistance at lambing = cull
Generally offend me in any other way = cull

But no not making any money currently. Still in establishment/expansion phase. Projected to make profits from year 4 (currently year 2). And projected to make excellent profits from year 5, as larger numbers of shedding inverdales come online.

Eventually I'd like to have an elite performance recorded core flock, producing females for a commercial flock going to a shedding terminal. However, I want to stabilize the composite first.