Easy ram tups

[hillman]

You sound like someone that hasn't tried a beltex tup! We have lambed 1/3 of our texel x flock outside this year (500) and all to beltex tups. They are as easy lambing as any of these nz type sheep. Also put 440 beltex x and texel x hoggs to beltex tups with very few problems.
The premium is definitely there all year round. As above, Wigton or Kirkby Stephen are the marts to look at. We have taken the better end of our lambs to Kirkby this back end and have av. £100 for 37/38 kg lambs.
As far as I'm concerned, my inputs will be as low as most on easy care type systems but I have a much better output.

When is your main selling period ?

I think the real issue re grass reared rams is that they will never look the part in an auction sale because at whatever level of sale be it a Premier Sale in Ireland or Society Sale in UK or specialist ram sales such as Builth/Kelso or even your local weekly mart the buyers are inevitably drawn to the biggest and fattest ( proof of my theory is they always make most money) and so would not even stop to ask why your grass fed rams are smaller etc etc. The other disadvantage of auction sales is the lack of contact between buyer and seller as the auctioneer is always in the middle - I bet most vendors at an average ram sale do not even know the name of the purchaser of their stock. I think the steady increase in sales of grass fed rams over here is a few years ahead of you in Ireland but I am sure it is the trend and your heavy use of Teagasc advisors and discussion groups in all sectors will surely add to the pace of change.

Wouldn't hold my breath sadly on guidance from Teagasc unless it's black and tinged with 4 teats ....
I'm glad the trial in athenry is going well but I'm waiting for a curve ball ...

On buying Rams here the big sales aren't really till late September onwards in marts and guys buy them to turn out next week and wonder why they melt
Now there are a core of guys who buy well in advance but for the majority of flocks it's last minute dot com !

 

[Woolly]

..... I dont see premium quality lambs through a butchers shop doing this nowadays much as I would like to be wrong .....

There are alternative marketing strategies to supplying the supermarkets. EG Rhug Estate in N Wales has cut its dependence on Waitrose by 2/3rds, by developing its own markets.

If farmers worked together more, a lot could be done regarding branding and marketing more directly, a premium product.

 

[beltextexel]

When is your main selling period ?

Main selling period would be over winter, but start selling all the way though from July to March. April born lambs.

I'm trying to upload a picture and video of the lambs but it's not cooperating!

 

[gatepost]

I agree but we are not in a position to stop the imports (but that could change )so we are going to have to look recaptureing our own market and getting home consumption up alot , I dont see premium quality lambs through a butchers shop doing this nowadays much as I would like to be wrong , surely sensibly priced /size R3 lambs produced at reasonable cost would be an easier more sustainable way to achieve this than a high quality /high input treadmill when financial/labour resources are possibly scarce
l

I have been supplying a city centre butcher for the last yr, his/my sales are going up, he was sending complete runs of lambs back to the abattoir as unsalable.

 

[easyram1]

At the risk of incurring your wrath...again I would say that this is a scenario where the NZ type would come into its own on these terminal type ewes where they were both bringing something to the party.

No wrath today as I am in a particularly good humour but more of that later. You make an interesting point. There is a common view expressed mainly by those breeding or using traditional UK Terminal sires that NZ produce plain or poorer quality lambs than their UK equivalents. So firstly I cannot speak for the 3 NZ Romney breeders I know of nor can I speak for Primeras and Highlanders but I do have 10 years of experience of pure NZ sourced Suffolks Texels and Sufftexes.
In our opinion our early sourced NZ Suffolks were big tall long and a bit short of back.end shape. This was probably not unrelated to the fact that a lot of blood of a specific ram was involved who happened to be the highest ranked NZ Suffolk on SIL for at least 3 years but more importantly had a ARR/ARR genotype. His ranking was however masinly down to his exceptional growth rather than muscling.
So having decided we did not like what we had we then bought NZ Suffolk semen that was carrying either 1 or 2 copies of Myomax ( the extra muscling gene ) Unfortunately this was a bit of a £5K disaster due to semen quality so we then used a NZ Texel ( via semen0 and put on our NZ ewes and very quickly had various types of Sufftexes 3/4 Suffolk 1/4 Texel or 7/8 S 1/8 Texel etc etc and all carrying 1 or 2 copies of Myomax
So in general there are many types of EasyRams now available and all a considerable improvement on what we started with. So we have available thicker meatier rams that are ideal for say mules or longer finer rams that are very good on say Texel X ewes as they maximise speed to finishing. They are also ideal for small ewes or ewe lambs. So it is horses for courses which is why my first question to a new buyer is what breed do you have and where do you farm?
I think that the thing that is frequently overlooked in this discussion is that as a ram buyer you are buying the skill ethos and knowledge of your ram breeder. I also very clearly remember the advice from my late Dad, who was far wiser and cleverer than me and he said to develop a flock and breed the type of rams you want to sell you have to buy in your stock rams in bits as no single ram will give you everything you want in one hit. I also remember a general truism re terminal rams that you can breed large quick growing rams or thicker rams that probably grow slower. It takes real skill and probably luck to do both at the same time.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Don't you buggers all start agreeing now this thread has been such a source of entertainment

 

[Joe]

I think the real issue re grass reared rams is that they will never look the part in an auction sale because at whatever level of sale be it a Premier Sale in Ireland or Society Sale in UK or specialist ram sales such as Builth/Kelso or even your local weekly mart the buyers are inevitably drawn to the biggest and fattest ( proof of my theory is they always make most money) and so would not even stop to ask why your grass fed rams are smaller etc etc. The other disadvantage of auction sales is the lack of contact between buyer and seller as the auctioneer is always in the middle - I bet most vendors at an average ram sale do not even know the name of the purchaser of their stock. I think the steady increase in sales of grass fed rams over here is a few years ahead of you in Ireland but I am sure it is the trend and your heavy use of Teagasc advisors and discussion groups in all sectors will surely add to the pace of change.

This is why grass fed rams are not sold in markets but from the house.

1/2 the flock here are April born grass reared and all sold from the house. I only attend one sale a year, last year sold my shearling entry privately 2 weeks before so brought a super shearling April born originally was going to keep that had done 430gms / day to 100 days off grass only in his place. The amount of comments about how fine a sheep he was but little small, he was 120kg. Sold him for 660, really hope a breeder bought him as got a bargain but doubt it. I've sold shearlings to multiples of this amount, and none were as good a sheep as this fella but buyers struggle to believe he was genuinely grass reared as not used to seeing them.

Also judged a sale last year, I stood in front of one of the most overfed ram lambs I ever saw. First thought was how the hell do I judge this fella, so I didn't and left him where he was. Two things stick in my memory, first the breeders absolute dismay at my decision and then that he made 2nd highest price of the day just below the champion.....

 

[easyram1]

People watching this thread over the monthsand wanting some up to date info will be pleasantly surprised to learn that at long last we have updated our website ( or in reality created a totally new one complete with 130 pics etc). We have also included under "locations" the precise locations all our previous purchasers which is on a really clever google maps gismo. Some of the regular contributors here may also be found lurking around. Other new features will include hopefully an up to date News Blog and also a Ewes4Sale tab on which we will list FOC any EasyRam sired females that clients have for sale during the coming season. Any suggestions about further enhancements would be greatly appreciated. Finally the website guy will now redo the whole thing to give us a mobile/tablet friendly version as well

 

[Woolless]

People watching this thread over the monthsand wanting some up to date info will be pleasantly surprised to learn that at long last we have updated our website ( or in reality created a totally new one complete with 130 pics etc). We have also included under "locations" the precise locations all our previous purchasers which is on a really clever google maps gismo. Some of the regular contributors here may also be found lurking around. Other new features will include hopefully an up to date News Blog and also a Ewes4Sale tab on which we will list FOC any EasyRam sired females that clients have for sale during the coming season. Any suggestions about further enhancements would be greatly appreciated. Finally the website guy will now redo the whole thing to give us a mobile/tablet friendly version as well

Had a look at the website yesterday, funnily enough. They've made a good job of the re-vamp. Worth a look.

 

[baabaa]

some may find this interesting
http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news...g-pays-dividends-for-co-tyrone-sheep-farmer/#

 

[Clipping1964]

Website looks great. Massive improvment over the old version.
What is a MeatEasy, and an Easy Texel Plus?
RomTex, are these first cross animals?
Appologies if I've missed this already.

 

[ryanmcmac45]

Website looks great. Massive improvment over the old version.
What is a MeatEasy, and an Easy Texel Plus?
RomTex, are these first cross animals?
Appologies if I've missed this already.

Beat me too it...meat easy some kind of meatlinc x easyrams cross??

 

[easyram1]

Website looks great. Massive improvment over the old version.
What is a MeatEasy, and an Easy Texel Plus?
RomTex, are these first cross animals?
Appologies if I've missed this already.

We have been deliberately keeping a bit quiet about these. So MeatEasy is the product of a UK Beltex ram put onto our NZ Suffolk ewes. EasyTexel Plus is the progeny of a very High Index UK Texel put onto our NZ Texel ewes. Many wise members of this Forum were urging us to do this earlier in the spring but we had already done that ( although I did not crack on about it )and time and performance will eventually tell us if it is a wise or foolhardy experiment. Yes Romtex remain a first ross resulting from using a NZ Texel tup on NZ Romney Ewes.

 

[ryanmcmac45]

We have been deliberately keeping a bit quiet about these. So MeatEasy is the product of a UK Beltex ram put onto our NZ Suffolk ewes. EasyTexel Plus is the progeny of a very High Index UK Texel put onto our NZ Texel ewes. Many wise members of this Forum were urging us to do this earlier in the spring but we had already done that ( although I did not crack on about it )and time and performance will eventually tell us if it is a wise or foolhardy experiment. Yes Romtex remain a first ross resulting from using a NZ Texel tup on NZ Romney Ewes.

What will a super elite ram have over your premium rams ?

 

[easyram1]

Beat me too it...meat easy some kind of meatlinc x easyrams cross??

See above. Beltex tup came from Danny Creer on the Isle of Man and is as wild and mobile and fit as a flee so heres hoping. He had about 20 ewes and his lambs were all born outside with no issues. Plenty of shape and size so far follows the mothers but will they grow quick enough time will tell. We used the semen off a John Vorn Texel called Vorn War 'Orse bought out of Worcester by a friend.. According to the sales blurb he has a 516 index and highest ever eye muscle area and length measured. He was tip sire as ram lamb for 21 wk weight with +20.21Kgs. From our viewpoint finish front and very narrow head were major plus points. We used him by AI on about 20 NZ Texel ewes. They lambed easily enough but more than that I cannot say yet

 

[Clipping1964]

Ok. Wasnt expecting Beltex then!! Reasons for this?
What Texel have you used? Surely it would be easier to call it a Texel, Rather than an Easy Texel Plus?

What romney ram breeder are you working with? There are so few around.

How do you justify such big prices for first cross animals, especially lambs? What is different about EasyRams first cross animal, and Joe blogs buying say pure Texel ewes and using an EasyRams Texel on them?

 

[easyram1]

Ok. Wasnt expecting Beltex then!! Reasons for this?
What Texel have you used? Surely it would be easier to call it a Texel, Rather than an Easy Texel Plus?

What romney ram breeder are you working with? There are so few around.

How do you justify such big prices for first cross animals, especially lambs? What is different about EasyRams first cross animal, and Joe blogs buying say pure Texel ewes and using an EasyRams Texel on them?

Reason for Beltex is purely experimental. Fellow ram breeders - even enlightened ones on the Forum enjoy criticising NZ sheep for alleged lack of conformation. I don't necessarily agree with this but now we have a tie up with a large abattoir we are going to be able to get really good feedback on carcase grades meat yields etc etc off specific rams we have produced. Also by doing probably more CT scanning than any other private ram breeder in the country we will get another source of major data about meat yield eating quality etc etc and the Beltex X will at worst give us an interesting comparison with all our other types of rams..
Regarding the EasyTexel Plus the word Easy is very much part of our Brand so we want to keep that in the name but still differentiate these rams from our main offering of 100% NZ genetics.
Romtex info confidential re associates so can not discuss but we are only selling 100% NZ genetics.
Re first crosses I don't have to justify the prices we charge for anything, because the market always rules and the customer is always right. If I get it wrong either re breed or price or anything else we end up with a field full of unsold tups and probably a fairly hacked off bank manager. We will no longer sell knowingly to other ram breeders but once the rams are gone there is nothing we can do to stop anyone doing what they like with them

 

[easyram1]

What will a super elite ram have over your premium rams ?

For the first time we are introducing a consistent price differential according to Performance Data. So +£50 for top 20% on index and -£50 for lowest 20% on Performance Figs and middle 60% are at base price

 

[ryanmcmac45]

For the first time we are introducing a consistent price differential according to Performance Data. So +£50 for top 20% on index and -£50 for lowest 20% on Performance Figs and middle 60% are at base price

Any pictures off these Romtex rams?

 

[Clipping1964]

Some talk of your ram lambs being expensive, but I can understand the justification of such costs as the extra cost of using imported genetics. But for first cross animals, where realistically you have no idea of which way these animals will go performance wise, £500 for an April born lamb is huge. Especially one on a low input grass fed system, and for an animal that in most peoples eyes would just be a finished lamb destined for a proccesor. But then I've heard it said you could sell sand to the the arabs.
A confidential partnership. Sounds suspicious. Breeders are normally proud of what they produce.