- Location
- North Antrim
Your Suffolks are looking well with alot of length and good skins.
Easy ram tups
- Thread starter Mcclelland
- Start date
- Location
- Scottish Borders
Cracking lambs sir !! The suftex in the bottom picture chatting to the texel looks like it might have a splash of Charollais in it judging by its colour !
- Location
- Herefordshire
Easyram,it was a pleasure meeting you ,last week ,down in rolling countryside of my favourite county,Herefordshire ☺.Lovely to talk to you about sheep and your thoughts on breeding and genetics.Really enjoyed the afternoon and evening,the Aussie guy was a bit of a laugh,very entertaining. All the best TB.
dogandstick
Member
- Location
- on the horizon
Cracking lambs sir !! The suftex in the bottom picture chatting to the texel looks like it might have a splash of Charollais in it judging by its colour !
The Texel he's talking to looks a good lamb too
- Location
- Devon
- Location
- Herefordshire
Was it him ? Gosh,would of introduced myself if I'd known.Im sure he was a Aussie.You sure you don't mean kiwi - @Global ovine himself
- Location
- Devon
Well obviously I wasn't there but I do know GO is over atm
Yes, think he'll be over here on Monday
Clipping1964
Member
Look at the grass!! Fantastic ground you have there. Who needs feed when you can grow grass like that. You should be milking cows not keeping sheep
- Location
- North Antrim
very troll.... I mean droll
M-J-G
Member
This is true, from what I can gather not much NZ land of that quality will be used for sheep production.
Interestingly I spoke to a few NZ sheep farmers that were over at Highland Show time, and they said that there was a move away from Texel due to poorer fertility than other breeds used there.
Jackson4
Member
- Location
- Wensleydale
jeeeeeeeezuus
Think any grass just needs a medium to grow in, more important for milking cows would be how flat/big fields do you have to get enough winter feed. Most farms here in the peninnes have swaleys were cows once were, we are nearly all sheep now. Texels up on the moor etc.If anything it looks like the ryegrass has seeded so is probably lower energy than a leafy unimproved, but plenty of clover which doesnt need dairy fields for it to grow in.
I find the ryegrass leys and natives which have taken over, cocksfoots/timothy/yorkshire fog etc and ryegrass are worse than unimproved land if they aren't carefully controlled through may/jun.. best fattening field on this farm by far is the one in my avatar, grazed it this year to try knock the buttercups in favour of clover, now its all leaf/mixed flowers loads of clover, etc and not a seed head in sight.
I always put any groups over there if i want to keep them separate, old knackers, lumpy bags, out to cull with footrot when it was bad, now codd sheep etc.. sheep and lambs go from struggling to the fittest on the farm. Field probably not been touched since the war.
When i see the stats on kiwi sheep breeds they always seem to be lower there than here, i think they were getting 120%? from the texels? but all breeds seemed very low considering. Maybe Robyn will say what his are doing.
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M-J-G
Member
Obviously they were comparing like with like, but the group of guys were all in agreement and had all swung away from the Texel in their ewe flock, as had msny that they spoke about.
NZDan
Member
- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
Interesting call, since there has been a huge increase in RomTex rams particularity since there is now numerous lines of highly Fecund Texels about.
- Location
- Fife
Was just about to mention the GD9 Texel...
It was already broken.
Member
- Location
- South Norfolk
Whats that then @unlacedgecko ?
M-J-G
Member
I wouldn't know exactly, I was only going by what the guys said.
Why an increase in Romtex rams and not Texel?
Im not a kiwi but i was told by one last week that a lot of kiwi sheep boys are to scared to move away from romney. I dont blame them if it works then why.... could that be a reason? Best of both worlds without going too far from what they know works?
- Location
- Fife
IIRC it's the Aberdale Gene. Basically a fecundity gene going in some lines of Texel. Each copy of the gene increases litter size by 0.3 in females.
So breeding a Aberdale to a base ewe should result in heterozygous ewe lambs, which will have 0.3 lambs more than their mothers.
I'm sure @NZDan and @Global ovine will correct me if I'm wrong.
CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
I believe the gene is the Inverdale gene. Aberdale is the sheep, bred in Aberystwyth, incorporating the Inverdale gene.