Getting ewes smaller

[Mcclelland]

Why b*gger up a good sheep with crossing it.

Having been with the Romney all of my life and my Father before me I am sure I have given a few words of wisdom before.
It has been crossed many times over the last few hundred years, but the base breed is the same.
It was crossed with a Ryeland to make the wool finer in the 1930's and led to two distinct breed types in Kent, the original home as they were always called "Kent" sheep. The fine woolled ones were mostly found in North Kent, whereas the traditional bigger and heavier woolled sheep still lived on the Romney Marsh.

It is a maternal breed, don't forget that!
The only truly successful cross has been with a Texel. This was approved by the breed society and led to the Romney 2000 which significantly improved the conformation but not mush else.

The Cheviots crossing (Perendales) have been tried many times and on certain land it may work for a short time. Historically if they are grazed hard on the type of country where the pure Romney is kept they lose their teeth and don't last very well at all. Why cross one maternal with another? The modern Romney is I believe more prolific than the Cheviot.

The High Country Romneys are a much more prolific strain and are smaller, they have improved significantly recently but originally were far too prolific for simple outdoor lambing.

The single greatest influence in the last 15 years has been from the introduction of the Waiere Romney. This was crossed (to a Polled Dorset) way back some 60 years ago by Derek Daniells father who set about improving the breed by making it more prolific and milky by recording very large numbers (thousands) and continuous improvement. By always lambing hoggets the improvement has been faster and performance of the sheep greater. At one time Waiere rams sired 7% of the NZ flock.

The breed has a great ability to survive through extreme conditions and will always recover on forage alone. It is often difficult to get them to eat hard food!!

Thank you for your words of wisdom that I appreciate from you.One reason for my thoughts on introducing a cross was to allow me to in winter the flock and allowed my limited acres to recover for spring. As has been written a number of times Romney’s do not appear to enjoy being indoors .Have you had any experience of them indoors?

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

Thank you for your words of wisdom that I appreciate from you.One reason for my thoughts on introducing a cross was to allow me to in winter the flock and allowed my limited acres to recover for spring. As has been written a number of times Romney’s do not appear to enjoy being indoors .Have you had any experience of them indoors?

We do lamb our crossbred flock (Texel Romney) inside for a short period as these lamb in mid March and are usually fairly prolific. They are definitely not smaller though and would be around 15kg heavier than the pure Romney. Only in for a maximum of 3 weeks.

Romneys are quite happy on slats outside and I have seen them on outdoor verandahs. The tricky bit is keeping their feet dry enough. We run them on free draining gravel and feed them on Haylage on one farm which is always a great success.

 

[Mcclelland]

We do lamb our crossbred flock (Texel Romney) inside for a short period as these lamb in mid March and are usually fairly prolific. They are definitely not smaller though and would be around 15kg heavier than the pure Romney. Only in for a maximum of 3 weeks.

Romneys are quite happy on slats outside and I have seen them on outdoor verandahs. The tricky bit is keeping their feet dry enough. We run them on free draining gravel and feed them on Haylage on one farm which is always a great success.

 

[Mcclelland]

I had been considering a large poly tunnel with slats .An Irish company do plastic ones that get a good name thought costly.Would prefer to buy more land but local rich boy outbids the others so an alternative has to be found

 

[DanM]

We run some Romneys. All are outdoor lambed. They averaged 70kgs at tupping this year. We’ve used highcountry tups for last 3yrs with good success. I believe the previous issues with excessive prolificacy have been bred out and typically scan around 170 with only a handful of triplets.