Planning on flushing a few Texels and wondered what advice/experience people had on preparing the donors and recipients as friends have had very mixed success?
My advice would be to make sure the ewes you wish to flush have a proven maternal genetics (even within a terminal breed). Good fertility, good udder placement and milky, no lambing difficulties etc. If you’re flushing programme is successful you’ll hopefully have a nice bunch of ewe lambs to go with the ram lambs I’m assuming you’ll want to sell. You’ll need those females to be productive in a couple of years so your baseline donor ewes need to meet the right spec before starting.
We only started ET4/5 years ago from a ewe that had proven herself to be the best in the flock. Her female offspring are now the mainstay of the flock and are regularly producing the best performing lambs, while maintaining good maternal qualities.
We’ve experimented and taken the odd chance with an unproven ewe too and it hasn’t normally worked out so I’d steer clear of following that route!