Exlana sheep... thinking about a change

[farmer92]

Thinking of a change with our small flock (<100) which I have been slowly building up. I have been reading about Exlanas and they almost seem too good to be true after reading what people say on different threads. I went to see another farmers flock of Easycares and was impressed but from my research it seems the Exlana is a superior breed with many different benefits. We're running mules currently but want something a bit easier to fit in with our system. Low input, less labour etc. Am I barking up the wrong tree or do they do what they say on the tin? Would probably look to start with 50 and see how we go... Can anyone offer any insight?
Cheers

 

[pgk]

Beauty of exlanas is being able to buy rams with figures. I understand a small number of easy care breeders are recording. We have used exlana rams for last few years and have found good accuracy for ebv traits selected on. Also we can get mv rams and ewes which are rare amongst easy care breeders. Wish they had been about all those years ago when we started with lleyns.

 

[GreenerGrass]

@Tim W is the man, hugely knowledgeable about all things sheep and a nice guy.

All breeds have pluses and minuses, good examples and bad examples.

What I would say is Exlana's are culled hard for the right reasons, so as a rule they will have a better average than a breed that isn't selected as heavily. They also have the data to back up what they say.

 

[bendigeidfran]

If i were you i would try some and see how they do.
Went to a farming connect demonstration farm about grazing managment a few years
ago and he had just bought some exlanas,
I bumped in to him just before lockdown and asked him about them, did'nt say a lot about them but his expresion said a lot and he was going to try easycares insted.
I tried hilanders a few years ago, first cross were allright went down hill after.
If you dont try you will never know

 

[Johngee]

Thinking of a change with our small flock (Cheers

I would not say that Exlanas are a superior breed to Easycares. The genetics are fairly similar on the whole. I’ve used a couple of Exlana rams on our Easycare flock and I would say that their performance is broadly comparable. Obviously it would be great if more Easycare breeders did performance record but those of us who do can sell stock with good performance and high accuracies.

 

[Tim W]

Thinking of a change with our small flock (<100) which I have been slowly building up. I have been reading about Exlanas and they almost seem too good to be true after reading what people say on different threads. I went to see another farmers flock of Easycares and was impressed but from my research it seems the Exlana is a superior breed with many different benefits. We're running mules currently but want something a bit easier to fit in with our system. Low input, less labour etc. Am I barking up the wrong tree or do they do what they say on the tin? Would probably look to start with 50 and see how we go... Can anyone offer any insight?
Cheers

@farmer92 --- I'm obviously biased as i sell them, but the beauty of Exlana is that we have a large recorded stud population which enables us to gather lots of measurements (weights/ultrasound muscle depths/individual worm egg counts etc) which makes for accurate data.
This in turn allows us to select for hard to measure traits like worm resistance with confidence
Sheep sold by Exlana are also disease screened for various iceberg diseases like MV/BD/OJD & OPA

there is always the option to breed the wool off your present ewes? 2 crosses will get you a wool shedding sheep which will save no end on labour?

What @Johngee didn't say but needs pointing out is that the term easycare is often used to describe any shedding sheep in UK ---this means that what is advertised as easycare can often have been bred up from a variety of bases (Shetland/Blackie/Welsh /Lleyn/etc) to produce a variety of shedding types suited to a variety of farms
Go to one of the well recorded shedding breeders like @Johngee or @Woolless (or me @Tim W ) and you will find sheep bred by dedicated farmers/breeders

 

[Danllan]

Thinking of a change with our small flock (<100) which I have been slowly building up. I have been reading about Exlanas and they almost seem too good to be true after reading what people say on different threads. I went to see another farmers flock of Easycares and was impressed but from my research it seems the Exlana is a superior breed with many different benefits...

See below...

...Go to one of the well recorded shedding breeders like @Johngee or @Woolless (or me @Tim W ) and you will find sheep bred by dedicated farmers/breeders

We started an Easycare flock a few years ago, the ewes - bought in as ewe-lambs - came from decent sources and we bought very good rams, one from @Johngee, and have had no problems with the quality of lambs produced for sale. But there was one thing...

Because the price of ewes was rather silly at the time and we'd set a finite budget for sheep, but wanted a bigger flock a.s.a.p., we didn't cull properly on the first crop of ewe-lambs and kept virtually all as breeders. Well, we're past that now but it took some extremely hard culling over the following few years to get the flock where it should have remained from the start.

That aside, I echo the comments made by others earlier; Easycares are well-capable of performing to the highest degree, but their breeding hasn't been as 'scientific' as that of Exlanas. Clearly performance recording would be of benefit and it's something we intend to do but, to be honest, we've said that for a couple of years now and always something else seems to knock it back.

We aren't precious about the 'name' of the type of sheep we have, our sole concern being the quality of lambs produced. So we'll bring in Exlana blood sooner or later for the benefits that will come from the work of @Tim W and others. I guess that it will be at that point that we'll start 'proper' record keeping; that's the intention anyway...

 

[FrazzledMummyFarmer]

I've posted in the livestock wanted section but just thought I'd jump in on this thread to see if anyone has any ideas.
I'm after a shedding terminal tup but they either seem to be terminal OR shedding.... Is there not an inbetweeny?
Don't want something which needs shearing as everything else is shedding but just wanted a bit more size and shape to my lambs
I'd of thought by now, with so many turning towards shedding sheep, there would be some choice?

 

[Woolless]

I've posted in the livestock wanted section but just thought I'd jump in on this thread to see if anyone has any ideas.
I'm after a shedding terminal tup but they either seem to be terminal OR shedding.... Is there not an inbetweeny?
Don't want something which needs shearing as everything else is shedding but just wanted a bit more size and shape to my lambs
I'd of thought by now, with so many turning towards shedding sheep, there would be some choice?

A lot of my flock have a proportion of shedding Texel blood in them but I wouldn't call them terminal sires. By choosing a tup from a recorded shedding flock with high growth and muscle EBVs means that you would be heading down that route.

 

[farmer92]

Thanks for the replies everyone, still unsure what direction I’ll be going in but I appreciate hearing everyone’s opinions

 

[unlacedgecko]

A lot of my flock have a proportion of shedding Texel blood in them but I wouldn't call them terminal sires. By choosing a tup from a recorded shedding flock with high growth and muscle EBVs means that you would be heading down that route.

highly recommend a tup from this man.

 

[Woolless]

highly recommend a tup from this man.

You're too kind!

 

[Tim W]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=596433644602933

This guy is top 5% for growth & muscle traits and Myomax ---he can also jump
Myomax & scrapie 1 of course
Delivering across the nation

 

[Jameshenry]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=596433644602933

This guy is top 5% for growth & muscle traits and Myomax ---he can also jump
Myomax & scrapie 1 of course
Delivering across the nation

He's just the ram i need to work on some cheviots to calm them down a bit ...nice looking ram though Tim

 

[neilo]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=596433644602933

This guy is top 5% for growth & muscle traits and Myomax ---he can also jump
Myomax & scrapie 1 of course
Delivering across the nation

Good to see a professional at work.?

 

[Tim W]

Good to see a professional at work.?

Reasonable rates if you're interested ?

 

[ISCO]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=596433644602933

This guy is top 5% for growth & muscle traits and Myomax ---he can also jump
Myomax & scrapie 1 of course
Delivering across the nation

Hope that's the one you picked out for me.

 

[Green farmer]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=596433644602933

This guy is top 5% for growth & muscle traits and Myomax ---he can also jump

You can nearly see the cogs going around in his head and that rams thinking. Dont know what it is about jumping sheep. Whenever I see them, it just makes my blood boil. Just really really irritates me?

 

[neilo]

Reasonable rates if you're interested ?

I thought you were trying to sell them? I doubt my photography skills would aid that much!

As to the jumping, I’d expect most fit, healthy rams from an active, mobile breed to think about it if they were isolated from their flock mates and effectively ‘cornered’. Unless they were expecting the human in the pen to give them a bucket of something of course.

 

[unlacedgecko]

You can nearly see the cogs going around in his head and that rams thinking. Dont know what it is about jumping sheep. Whenever I see them, it just makes my blood boil. Just really really irritates me?

Anything which jumps out the pen/race here gets a cull mark. Don't want to be breeding in that sort of behaviour.