Dissatisfied with my upland/fell flock system

[Fellsfarmer90]

Morning, so following on from the title im farming 400 horned ewes 280 kept pure 120 crossed to produce mules the majority of the flock spend 8months of the year on fell ground some dry decent ground the rest rushes bog & moss. (very limited green land to bring them down to) We have been farming this system for 40+ years & do have success with the pures. so wouldnt want to fully change from them. But find the mule job extremely frustrating & horned weather lambs feel a waste of time and effort some days.
current temptation is to drop numbers down to 350 give over with the mule job & replace the Leicesters for chev tups?
1 man band outdoor Lambing & all lambs sold store + small suckler herd which I’d like to increase.
Suggest away

 

[Welderloon]

How about 100 top end horned pure, 250 Cheviots to BFL & bump your cows up a few

 

[Fellsfarmer90]

How about 100 top end horned pure, 250 Cheviots to BFL & bump your cows up a few

Yeah potentially one way to go. I’m certainly interested too see if chev‘s can thrive on the fell. maybe thrive better then a horned ewe?
other thought I’d had was to go down the countrybred route x between scots, lonks dales.

 

[AngusLad]

What kind of horned ewes?

 

[spin cycle]

is straw an issue if increasing cows

 

[livestock 1]

Buy two more farms and rent another one then your original problem will disappear into what would seem insignificance

 

[Fellsfarmer90]

Buy two more farms and rent another one then your original problem will disappear into what would seem insignificance

Is this speaking from experience ?

 

[Fellsfarmer90]

What kind of horned ewes?

Dales

 

[Fellsfarmer90]

is straw an issue if increasing cows

Shouldn’t be have decent cubicle sheds and no shortage of rushes to bale up

 

[livestock 1]

Is this speaking from experienc?

Absolutely !!
Don’t do it !

 

[livestock 1]

Joking aside there’s so many people in the same situation looking at things and needing to change. The hill type of farm especially is under threat more than ever before. Anyone just needs to look at the numbers of breeding stock at regular sales and what’s gone.
To simplify it what you are saying is you need to make more from what you are already doing, something we all look at pretty constantly

 

[Skintagain]

If you could get some hard cheviots to cross in going pure would serve you well. 400 Swales isn’t enough to make a living form but 400 cheviots could be as the stores will leave you more and the ewe lambs

 

[Devil's advocate]

Buy two more farms and rent another one then your original problem will disappear into what would seem insignificance

That would be ethnic cleansing of small farmers

 

[livestock 1]

That would be ethnic cleansing of small farmers

They ethnically cleansed themselves I didn’t ask them too

 

[Devil's advocate]

They ethnically cleansed themselves I didn’t ask them too

You could have stood out for new starters. Instead of gobbling everything up.

 

[livestock 1]

You could have stood out for new starters. Instead of gobbling everything up.

I’ve got 3 new starters of my own

 

[Devil's advocate]

I’ve got 3 new starters of my own

Ethnic cleansing followed by recolonization..

Better than Chris Packham anyway.

 

[Agrivator]

Morning, so following on from the title im farming 400 horned ewes 280 kept pure 120 crossed to produce mules the majority of the flock spend 8months of the year on fell ground some dry decent ground the rest rushes bog & moss. (very limited green land to bring them down to) We have been farming this system for 40+ years & do have success with the pures. so wouldnt want to fully change from them. But find the mule job extremely frustrating & horned weather lambs feel a waste of time and effort some days.
current temptation is to drop numbers down to 350 give over with the mule job & replace the Leicesters for chev tups?
1 man band outdoor Lambing & all lambs sold store + small suckler herd which I’d like to increase.
Suggest away

​

It's a bit late to buy Cheviot tups, but there will be a few at Longtown on 22nd October. A stretchy tight-skined South-Country tup would be a good starting point, and the following year you could consider adding a Lairg-type North Country Cheviot from the Lockerbie sale. Do you have to consider ticks and bought-in naive sheep?​

​

Tuesday 22nd October at 10.30am​

9,000 Store Lambs including Show & Sale of Cheviots
Final Sale for Rams of All Classes including Cheviot & Blackface Rams

 

[Ysgythan]

Go MV on your in bye land. Sell MV accredited gimmers as embryo recipients. Vasectomise some of the tup lambs as MV teasers. Men will buy Dales mules or Suffolk or Texel x Dales Mules for this job. Few people got a good following on Facebook for this trade just by selling them on groups.

It is a faff, and you’d have to keep your MV stock separate. A test at 12 months and 18 months is all you need to get them accredited though. There’s more of a premium than the cost. However if you tested some Dalesbred ewes and used MV BFL/Border Leicester/Lleyn on them you wouldn’t need to test the offspring and could sell them as lambs.

 

[Top Tip.]

​

It's a bit late to buy Cheviot tups, but there will be a few at Longtown on 22nd October. A stretchy tight-skined South-Country tup would be a good starting point, and the following year you could consider adding a Lairg-type North Country Cheviot from the Lockerbie sale. Do you have to consider ticks and bought-in naive sheep?​

​

Tuesday 22nd October at 10.30am​

9,000 Store Lambs including Show & Sale of Cheviots
Final Sale for Rams of All Classes including Cheviot & Blackface Rams

There’s 766 North Country Cheviot tups in Dingwall on Friday the 18th of October. There will be tups there too suit everyone .