Guess the latest breed?

[neilo]

When will the Aberfield stop being a crossbred tup? I think they are in their 5th generation of being bred "pure" now!

I have 3 with the oldest going into his 5th tupping season this year. Always hold their condition well and their lambs fatten as easy as the texel cross lambs....but not got the shape though

Are they being bred 'pure' though? I understood that new genetics were still being bought in (via Builth etc) and incorporated. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with the idea of bringing in the best available genetics regularly, but it hardly stabilises any hybrid population.

 

[Al R]

Are they being bred 'pure' though? I understood that new genetics were still being bought in (via Builth etc) and incorporated. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with the idea of bringing in the best available genetics regularly, but it hardly stabilises any hybrid population.

That texel costing £130k go there then? How good is your Welsh now Neil?

 

[johnflimston]

We have used Primera for a couple of years and their lambs certainly finish quicker than anything else.
Lost one last year so only one left now thinking of going Thursday to look for a few more.

 

[reverand]

Funnily enough, I know someone that used a number of Aberfield Rams in a mob and reported the same. Of course it could have been down to one rogue tup amongst that mob, but it was one of the things that put him off too iirc.
I don't consider Entropion to be a breed problem particularly, more a breeder/lack of culling on functionality/chasing short term income problem. It occurs in all breeds occasionally I suspect, but some breeders see it has a culling fault, others treat it & leave go.
I don't suppose 'Abereyelid' would be a particularly good seller though.

Abereyelid
No I can honestly say I've had no eye problems
Entropic eyes could soon become a breed problem if the gene pool was small enough and the breeders unscrupulous enough

 

[reverand]

I sounds like then it's the price of their tups that people on here don't like?
They do far more recording than any other tup breeder I know personally at least. Apart from the odd rouge tup they produce good off spring.
The tups seem to last with no maintenance. If it wasn't called an aberwhatever and charged £900 for it you woul be happy to have it in the tup team?

 

[CharcoalWally]

I sounds like then it's the price of their tups that people on here don't like?
They do far more recording than any other tup breeder I know personally at least. Apart from the odd rouge tup they produce good off spring.
The tups seem to last with no maintenance. If it wasn't called an aberwhatever and charged £900 for it you woul be happy to have it in the tup team?

Interestingpoint @reverand , if you don't like splashing the cash for tups, then Innovis tups are not for you.

I'll spend as much cash on good quality sires, but based on what I saw at sale last year, it won't be on an Innovis tup.

You either like sheep or you don't, and I'm afraid I didn't. All the recording they do, and it's only in house recording don't forget, won't sway me if I don't like their sheep.

Also their tups were in damn good form for sale. There wasn't enough difference between them and ram sales tups either to tempt me. I breed most of my own sires here on the farm. I know what genuinely forage reared rams look like because that's what I do..

Their pricing structure is good business sense if your a businesman. Their tups will have to perform well to justify it, and if buyers keep returning over the years, then we'll know that they do.

 

[Al R]

Interestingpoint @reverand , if you don't like splashing the cash for tups, then Innovis tups are not for you.

I'll spend as much cash on good quality sires, but based on what I saw at sale last year, it won't be on an Innovis tup.

You either like sheep or you don't, and I'm afraid I didn't. All the recording they do, and it's only in house recording don't forget, won't sway me if I don't like their sheep.

Also their tups were in damn good form for sale. There wasn't enough difference between them and ram sales tups either to tempt me. I breed most of my own sires here on the farm. I know what genuinely forage reared rams look like because that's what I do..

Their pricing structure is good business sense if your a businesman. Their tups will have to perform well to justify it, and if buyers keep returning over the years, then we'll know that they do.

Our Aberfield's were standing in the gate when we had them waiting for food.
We're giving our Rams a little bit of oats and barley at the moment before they go into the ewes, there's 1 ram that runs away from the trough.. guess which one @Tim W

 

[Woolless]

There was talk locally that they were working on an Abershedder but I'm not sure if it was really true or not.

Not sure about that. What I do know is when they took in recorded Blackfaces for their sale at Stirling, the question was asked if they would be interested in having recorded Easycares at their sales. The answer was no, as they viewed them as competition for their maternal hybrids.

 

[scholland]

There are some very good breeders working with innovis so there will be variation with the innovis umbrella.
Aberfield certainly seems to be over done a bit with the amount at the sale I was at.

 

[reverand]

Interestingpoint @reverand , if you don't like splashing the cash for tups, then Innovis tups are not for you.

I'll spend as much cash on good quality sires, but based on what I saw at sale last year, it won't be on an Innovis tup.

You either like sheep or you don't, and I'm afraid I didn't. All the recording they do, and it's only in house recording don't forget, won't sway me if I don't like their sheep.

Also their tups were in damn good form for sale. There wasn't enough difference between them and ram sales tups either to tempt me. I breed most of my own sires here on the farm. I know what genuinely forage reared rams look like because that's what I do..

Their pricing structure is good business sense if your a businesman. Their tups will have to perform well to justify it, and if buyers keep returning over the years, then we'll know that they do.

That amount of recording cost money I suppose.
I'm not sure I would buy any innovis tup just because it is an innovis tup. If I wanted a true terminal sire there are a lot of options that are equal if not better I'm sure to innovis To be fair they have done more than just put a bfl and texel together to produce the aberfield, it is stabilised to a degree. It is a specific cross that I think goes well over hill chevs in my case.

 

[neilo]

I sounds like then it's the price of their tups that people on here don't like?
They do far more recording than any other tup breeder I know personally at least. Apart from the odd rouge tup they produce good off spring.
The tups seem to last with no maintenance. If it wasn't called an aberwhatever and charged £900 for it you woul be happy to have it in the tup team?

Do they do much more recording than most performance recorded breeders though? They might measure more traits and put a figure to them, all in house to avoid direct comparisons, but all recorded breeders will have ebvs generated for maternal ability, growth rate, muscling, etc. Some might be recording lambing ease, and several maternal breeds are measuring FEC (& saliva) ebvs now. Quite a few of us terminal sire breeders are making good use of CT scanning, and have been doing so since long before any Aberwotsits were even dreamt up.

Whilst a lot won't be translating other traits to a numerical value, any stockman worth their salt will be culling out undesirable traits ruthlessly. Why do you need to apply a number to foot structure, when hanging up anything that's wrong anyway? If it constantly gets footrot or needs it's feet trimmed regularly, get it gone, don't waste time putting a value on it so that a geneticist in an office can tell you not to breed from it. Similarly entropion, as mentioned previously. I don't really care where they are rated on a scale from 1-9 (or whatever they do), if one of mine has entropion, it gets an ear notch and goes to market when it's fit. I would like to think most responsible breeders would be doing the same (although I know plenty that don't).

Measuring of intramuscular fat, which may be linked to eating quality, is another of their favourite tales at the moment. Those that CT scan their lambs will have that measured anyway, along with spine length, eye muscle area, gigot size, KO%, M:B ratio, etc. If there is ever a value attached to it (which I doubt, outside niche markets), then it will soon be possible for anyone that is Signet recording to select on that if they wish.

I wouldn't berate their sheep, as the rearing management means that they will last better, and need less mollycoddling, than most ram fair alternatives. My customers tell me the same, Easyrams will be the same, as I suspect will those sheep from most others who have shunned the feed bucket and are breeding functional sheep.
I also wouldn't baulk at rewarding the breeder by paying a premium price for the right ram, but I'd want to be confident it would pay me considerably better than a more reasonably priced alternative.

 

[Bob the beef]

Been watching this thread with interest over the last couple of days, and it seems very obvious that Innovis have polarised opinions in the sheep world, you either like what they are trying to achieve or you think that they are parting people from their cash with hype and nonsense.
I don't particularly like their style of selling, or their PR, but I can honestly say their tups will do exactly as they say on the tin. I have 7 abers now and they all tup 80-100 ewes each year with absolutely no hard feed, mollycoddling or health issues. All of them cost less than £1000.
Never had a tup out of Kelso that could remotely compete with that.

 

[liammogs]

Where do they get there breed stock for there crossing? Someone say builth etc....but are they buying the best or the worst, crossing and hoping for the best?

But as far as any recording is done in my opinion its only as good and honest as the person recording, and as far as there lambing ease, they use a lot of ET i was told so thats out of the window to start with, but what anoys me is people will walk past a pen of cross bred tups or not willing to pay as much for them, but people throw money at inovis for the same or if not worse

 

[reverand]

Where do they get there breed stock for there crossing? Someone say builth etc....but are they buying the best or the worst, crossing and hoping for the best?

But as far as any recording is done in my opinion its only as good and honest as the person recording, and as far as there lambing ease, they use a lot of ET i was told so thats out of the window to start with, but what anoys me is people will walk past a pen of cross bred tups or not willing to pay as much for them, but people throw money at inovis for the same or if not worse

If I was to turn up at a sale with a tup that is a texel over a Leicester or vice Versa , first cross animal, no history, even if it looked the part, I wouldn't expect anything like the innovis prices.
Innovis aren't perfect but on the case of the aberfield they have got a cross with bfl in it to last a good length of time with no feed

 

[Top Tip.]

If I was to turn up at a sale with a tup that is a texel over a Leicester or vice Versa , first cross animal, no history, even if it looked the part, I wouldn't expect anything like the innovis prices.
Innovis aren't perfect but on the case of the aberfield they have got a cross with bfl in it to last a good length of time with no feed

I think it's longevity with little feed could probably be down to the texel side of things.

 

[reverand]

I think it's longevity with little feed could probably be down to the texel side of things.

+hybrid vigour

 

[MJT]

Where do they get there breed stock for there crossing? Someone say builth etc....but are they buying the best or the worst, crossing and hoping for the best?

But as far as any recording is done in my opinion its only as good and honest as the person recording, and as far as there lambing ease, they use a lot of ET i was told so thats out of the window to start with, but what anoys me is people will walk past a pen of cross bred tups or not willing to pay as much for them, but people throw money at inovis for the same or if not worse

Pretty sure they start up a breeding project using a bit of ET then when enough females on the ground they go more natural, makes sense really to start like that and get the flock built up to numbers fast. As far as Aberdales go, I always go for lambs born at the Innovis farm in Aberystwyth , outdoor lambing pure texel ewes quickly weeds out the poor maternal lines .

 

[Weasel]

Hill cheviot

 

[johnflimston]

Do they do much more recording than most performance recorded breeders though? They might measure more traits and put a figure to them, all in house to avoid direct comparisons, but all recorded breeders will have ebvs generated for maternal ability, growth rate, muscling, etc. Some might be recording lambing ease, and several maternal breeds are measuring FEC (& saliva) ebvs now. Quite a few of us terminal sire breeders are making good use of CT scanning, and have been doing so since long before any Aberwotsits were even dreamt up.

Whilst a lot won't be translating other traits to a numerical value, any stockman worth their salt will be culling out undesirable traits ruthlessly. Why do you need to apply a number to foot structure, when hanging up anything that's wrong anyway? If it constantly gets footrot or needs it's feet trimmed regularly, get it gone, don't waste time putting a value on it so that a geneticist in an office can tell you not to breed from it. Similarly entropion, as mentioned previously. I don't really care where they are rated on a scale from 1-9 (or whatever they do), if one of mine has entropion, it gets an ear notch and goes to market when it's fit. I would like to think most responsible breeders would be doing the same (although I know plenty that don't).

Measuring of intramuscular fat, which may be linked to eating quality, is another of their favourite tales at the moment. Those that CT scan their lambs will have that measured anyway, along with spine length, eye muscle area, gigot size, KO%, M:B ratio, etc. If there is ever a value attached to it (which I doubt, outside niche markets), then it will soon be possible for anyone that is Signet recording to select on that if they wish.

I wouldn't berate their sheep, as the rearing management means that they will last better, and need less mollycoddling, than most ram fair alternatives. My customers tell me the same, Easyrams will be the same, as I suspect will those sheep from most others who have shunned the feed bucket and are breeding functional sheep.
I also wouldn't baulk at rewarding the breeder by paying a premium price for the right ram, but I'd want to be confident it would pay me considerably better than a more reasonably priced alternative.

what Rams do you produce?
Looking for terminal sire to go across Easy care ewes, have had good results with Primera but don't think I can get to the sale Thursday.

 

[neilo]

what Rams do you produce?
Looking for terminal sire to go across Easy care ewes, have had good results with Primera but don't think I can get to the sale Thursday.

I breed Charollais. However my point was that a lot of breeders, of many breeds, are doing very similar to Innovis with their normal breeding & selection methods, just not necessarily attributing a number to so many traits. Is that degree of 'recording' really of value, if a stockman is responsible for the culling decisions that remove those animals from the selection pool, or not? Where a geneticist sitting in an office is making the decisions, I can see the merit, but I'd rather the (very able) stockmen made those decisions. Breeding purely on a bar chart has never ended well IME, whatever the species.