Getting ewes smaller

[AT Aloss]

Hoping to cross my Romneys with something else to produce a smaller ewe that can be in wintered and hopefully allow me to carry more ewes to the acre.Currently run three to the acre.These are pretty large girls some over 90 kilos.would like to brink that down to around 65Any thoughts on the breed if tup?currently use Romney no texel and Hampshire.

We used to run mules but felt we couldn't run as many to acre as Lleyns, so my late father decided to go to Lleyns in 2014. He bought useful sized ewes from Ruthin but they had an instinctive desire to return to the hill from which they were hefted from the first day they first came to Lincolnshire. He then bought two massive Lleyn tups. The mules for all their faults were easily trained to the bag & friendly, albeit still a bit on the big side to catch & lamb outside. The closed flock of Lleyns is now full of massive jumping lunatics - each year I try & sling out the jumpers to try & breed it out of the flock - I even kept a ram lamb intact which was friendly & smaller to try & breed these unpleasant traits out of the white faced spooky bitches, but their independent instinct seems to be the last thing to go!!

 

[Heatgereater]

A Swale would drop mature size and keep all the mothering instincts and lambing ease as a one off cross. Might look a bit funny for the first couple of crosses but as you get back towards puréed Romney the horns will disappear. Depends if you can live with the looks

 

[tepapa]

My vote would go to the HIll North County Cheviot.

 

[dave mountain]

My vote would go to the North county cheviot.

hardly gonna reduce the size, park type are monsters (and lambing problems) if kept on good ground

my vote is beulahs

 

[Bill dog]

@Nithsdale Farmer is breeding his own Cheviot cross ewes, but using the lleyn not the Romney as his ewe base .
And park type tups if I recall right.
How are they doing Nithy ??
For what it’s worth , I’ve crossed all my Romney ewes this year to some of @easyram1 easydam tups.

 

[Jop]

Our Romney’s here at tupping time are usually just under 65kg (including shearlings), although they would weigh much more around lambing time. I don’t think it’s worth getting too hung up on ewe weights as long as they scan well in regard to there body weight and wean good weights. We would normally scan around 2.5-2.7 per kg of body weight.

Some ground grows stock bigger in my opinion.

 

[dave mountain]

@Nithsdale Farmer is breeding his own Cheviot cross ewes, but using the lleyn not the Romney as his ewe base .
And park type tups if I recall right.
How are they doing Nithy ??
For what it’s worth , I’ve crossed all my Romney ewes this year to some of @easyram1 easydam tups.

i have some border/hill cheviot X buelah, cheviot X scotch and cheviot X swale, all very good sheep. they would be about 65kg kept on hill/upland, so i cant see that a cheviot crossed onto a 90kg sheep on good ground is going to decrease the size much.

 

[tepapa]

hardly gonna reduce the size, park type are monsters (and lambing problems) if kept on good ground

my vote is beulahs

Well spotted, I will edit to say hill cheviot. Those parks Cheviots are big old lumps.

 

[Nithsdale]

@Nithsdale Farmer is breeding his own Cheviot cross ewes, but using the lleyn not the Romney as his ewe base .
And park type tups if I recall right.
How are they doing Nithy ??
For what it’s worth , I’ve crossed all my Romney ewes this year to some of @easyram1 easydam tups.

Aye, Park NCC. Not sure I'm breeding my ewes smaller - but that's why I chose Park and not Hill, I thought my ewes were a nice size to start with (most of them, at least!).

I like the ewes and think they are doing well. I say they're like a halfway house between a Chev Mule and
the Halfbred... but no Leicester blood so everyone's a winner

Skins are better, as I had gone too tight on the Lleyns (good for the lambs but ewes get struck easier in clean - sweaty - wool) and the lambs have the Chev print giving them the look/spark all the buyers want

 

[Mcclelland]

@Nithsdale Farmer is breeding his own Cheviot cross ewes, but using the lleyn not the Romney as his ewe base .
And park type tups if I recall right.
How are they doing Nithy ??
For what it’s worth , I’ve crossed all my Romney ewes this year to some of @easyram1 easydam tups.

Hi Have you ever kept New Zealand texel cross Romney’s in the past to breed with?

 

[Mcclelland]

Hi Have you ever kept New Zealand texel cross Romney’s in the past to breed with?

Wider if a south country Cheviot tup would help reduce the ewe size to what im seeking?

 

[Bill dog]

Hi Have you ever kept New Zealand texel cross Romney’s in the past to breed with?

Yes for a good few years . They are my commercial flock . I like them, and I hope the easydam makes a similar lamb , and the females will be retained. I ran out of pure ewes this year , which was sorted by buying a mob in from a fine chap on here.
I do like the look of @Nithsdale Farmer ’s Cheviot cross ewes, and I may borrow his idea in the future, to make my own perendale type sheep !

 

[Ysgythan]

Hoping to cross my Romneys with something else to produce a smaller ewe that can be in wintered and hopefully allow me to carry more ewes to the acre.Currently run three to the acre.These are pretty large girls some over 90 kilos.would like to brink that down to around 65Any thoughts on the breed if tup?currently use Romney no texel and Hampshire.

southdown?

 

[Nithsdale]

Yes for a good few years . They are my commercial flock . I like them, and I hope the easydam makes a similar lamb , and the females will be retained. I ran out of pure ewes this year , which was sorted by buying a mob in from a fine chap on here.
I do like the look of @Nithsdale Farmer ’s Cheviot cross ewes, and I may borrow his idea in the future, to make my own perendale type sheep !

Does that make me an 'influencer'?



Mind on, you can't use Chindale®

 

[Mcclelland]

Yes for a good few years . They are my commercial flock . I like them, and I hope the easydam makes a similar lamb , and the females will be retained. I ran out of pure ewes this year , which was sorted by buying a mob in from a fine chap on here.
I do like the look of @Nithsdale Farmer ’s Cheviot cross ewes, and I may borrow his idea in the future, to make my own perendale type sheep !

Should have asked ,would using a easy ram texel tup which I have be likely to leave me with a smaller ewe in your experience?

 

[Bill dog]

Should have asked ,would using a easy ram texel tup which I have be likely to leave me with a smaller ewe in your experience?

No, just a decent ewe with a bit less wool, and a tighter coat!

 

[Jockers84]

Hoping to cross my Romneys with something else to produce a smaller ewe that can be in wintered and hopefully allow me to carry more ewes to the acre.Currently run three to the acre.These are pretty large girls some over 90 kilos.would like to brink that down to around 65Any thoughts on the breed if tup?currently use Romney no texel and Hampshire.

Hi - we've actually been doing the reverse of what you're planning, running a NZ Romney over Hill cheviot ewes to produce a larger Perendale type ewe. These have been run alongside their mothers on the hill, weaning more lambs, similar need to intervene at lambing (not very much) and low mastitis due to sufficient wool cover. It depends on the type of ewe you're working away from, I think the right hill cheviot tup will help lower the size and give a better carcase but could lower the lambing %. You could try a few to see how it goes, heterosis should help with the lamb vigour and performance.

I tend to agree with a few of the previous suggestions to run your current flock a bit tighter/harder to reduce mature size, also tupping ewe lambs for one cycle might be a chance to up fertility.

I'm not sure if they're on here but High Country Romneys used bloodlines from the North Island NZ, these were smaller type ewes that suited dense stocking with parasite resistance and good feet. Maybe worth a look......

 

[neilo]

Should have asked ,would using a easy ram texel tup which I have be likely to leave me with a smaller ewe in your experience?

I used a couple on my Highlander ewes. The resultant daughters are generally bigger mature weights than the Highlanders, and weren’t as easily born as the ‘pure’ Highlanders were. They have made nice ewes and maintained their mothers’ maternal qualities. Their teeth aren’t lasting as long, but they make decent cull ewes.

I would expect the shepherds to have improved them since those earlier imports though, given the intervening years of selection & culling.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Hi - we've actually been doing the reverse of what you're planning, running a NZ Romney over Hill cheviot ewes to produce a larger Perendale type ewe. These have been run alongside their mothers on the hill, weaning more lambs, similar need to intervene at lambing (not very much) and low mastitis due to sufficient wool cover. It depends on the type of ewe you're working away from, I think the right hill cheviot tup will help lower the size and give a better carcase but could lower the lambing %. You could try a few to see how it goes, heterosis should help with the lamb vigour and performance.

I tend to agree with a few of the previous suggestions to run your current flock a bit tighter/harder to reduce mature size, also tupping ewe lambs for one cycle might be a chance to up fertility.

I'm not sure if they're on here but High Country Romneys used bloodlines from the North Island NZ, these were smaller type ewes that suited dense stocking with parasite resistance and good feet. Maybe worth a look......

@W Sawday
If he's still around is from High Country Romneys.

@exmoor tom has come at the OP's conundrum of reducing Romney ewe size with both Cheviot and Highlander I believe. Possibly on different sort of ground to the OP though?

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

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!!