Easycare sheep experiment

SR7

Member
Livestock Farmer
Currently have 400 indoor lambing mules and texel/mules. I bought 15 sucked hoggets and 25 ewe lambs to try over the next year. Ewe lambs purchased for £105 weighing roughly 45kg in September and sucked hoggets for £150 at around 60-65kg. Tupped half with Charollais and other half to beltex. Lambing will start on 1st April outside. 90% tupped in 4 weeks but left tups in for 6 weeks.
Observations so far-
- I expected feet to be better than mules but haven't seen much difference so far which is a little disappointing.
- They are break out of most fields I put them in
Will update this as I go, any advice welcome.
 

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HarryB97

Member
Mixed Farmer
Easy cares do not mean easy or good it’s just a term slapped on all wool shedding sheep. Unless you buy Exlanas from a breeder like @Tim W that are thoroughly recorded you may as well stick with mules.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Currently have 400 indoor lambing mules and texel/mules. I bought 15 sucked hoggets and 25 ewe lambs to try over the next year. Ewe lambs purchased for £105 weighing roughly 45kg in September and sucked hoggets for £150 at around 60-65kg. Tupped half with Charollais and other half to beltex. Lambing will start on 1st April outside. 90% tupped in 4 weeks but left tups in for 6 weeks.
Observations so far-
- I expected feet to be better than mules but haven't seen much difference so far which is a little disappointing.
- They are break out of most fields I put them in
Will update this as I go, any advice welcome.

They shed their wool (most of the time). That's only difference I found.
 

jackp

Member
Location
cumbria
Currently have 400 indoor lambing mules and texel/mules. I bought 15 sucked hoggets and 25 ewe lambs to try over the next year. Ewe lambs purchased for £105 weighing roughly 45kg in September and sucked hoggets for £150 at around 60-65kg. Tupped half with Charollais and other half to beltex. Lambing will start on 1st April outside. 90% tupped in 4 weeks but left tups in for 6 weeks.
Observations so far-
- I expected feet to be better than mules but haven't seen much difference so far which is a little disappointing.
- They are break out of most fields I put them in
Will update this as I go, any advice welcome.
Showing my ignorance here , what is a sucked hogget
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
And don’t have anywhere near as many lambs. I always say you could have a real disaster with mules and still come out with a similar lambing percentage to other breeds.

Romney x all the way for me now. Seem to my boxes. Biggest thing for me with easy cares is thru don't flock well at gathering and they seem to make the rest of the ewes (non easycare) harder to deal with.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Romney x all the way for me now. Seem to my boxes. Biggest thing for me with easy cares is thru don't flock well at gathering and they seem to make the rest of the ewes (non easycare) harder to deal with.
Only a starter flock here of 50 odd EC, but feet have been grand. Now they are keen on a bucket, they are not bad girls to get in, but are effing horrible when it comes time to handle closely! Hope that the pure offspring next Spring can be educated to have better manners before they get tupped...

Herself's flock of cade ewes really don't like the EC and they have not come together after a summer.... Sheep! :rolleyes:
 

Nithsdale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Easy cares do not mean easy or good it’s just a term slapped on all wool shedding sheep. Unless you buy Exlanas from a breeder like @Tim W that are thoroughly recorded you may as well stick with mules.

Easycare is, ofcourse, a breed.

 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Easycare is, ofcourse, a breed.

Im certain he knows that fact what he means is they are sheep just the same needing ie work to keep none of its easy is it. but no shearing of course, ie poor name choice at least .
He also makes a good point about https://www.exlana.co.uk/ improving sheep genetics, which yes will ultimately make a sheepmans/shepherds life easier .
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
No better advert for racial segregation than sheep, IMHO 🤔
We used to have a group made up of 20 suffolks, 20 texels and 20 BFL, except for tupping they spent their whole lives in the same fields /sheds yet would never mix with each other, as the suffolks got replaced by Charollais, the Suffolk’s would try and join another group as they were the minority but the other 3 groups would always run away from them 🤣
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Herself's flock of cade ewes really don't like the EC and they have not come together after a summer.... Sheep! :rolleyes:
Cade’s should never be kept on, I used to find 2-3 cades even in November in a bunch of 100 lambs would cause havoc for the dogs and us when handling 😡 the last 2 years I had any because of a school learning program they were killed regardless of weight at 12 weeks when weaned.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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