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<blockquote data-quote="Global ovine" data-source="post: 8771099" data-attributes="member: 493"><p>I too would recommend crossing your Texel Mules with a ram of your chosen breed, and if it proves successful keep going. Why buy somebody else's cast offs with disease risk.</p><p></p><p>Please keep in mind that some traits are very hard to gain because their heritability is very low. Unfortunately these tend to be the most influential in generating income and/or reducing costs (fertility, survival, thrift, longevity and disease resistance/resilience being in this group).</p><p> All visual traits have higher heritabilities, but only affect the financials at carcass "harvest" time.</p><p>The maternal traits are collectively worth 4 times that of the harvest traits.</p><p></p><p>Already quoted in in this thread are Highlanders and EasyDam Composites. One has a reputation in NZ as being rather variable and but prolific and found on North Island steep hill country, marketed as Highlander. Whereas the other is sold under various brands each using the same breed mixes in NZ's deep South where the cooler climate sees all lambs finished on the farms where they were born. These have a different high fertility/milking component in their mix. But because both are multi generation Composites they have retained around three quarters of the hybrid vigour generated in the 3 way crossing resulting in excess of a 20% lift in productivity of the average of the 3 parent breeds.</p><p></p><p>Uniformity results from the original breeders emphasis on type. Both Composites have a history of their foundation breeds being screened for very high performance traits. The foundation flocks from where EasyDams were sourced had a decade or so of further genetic development before combining. The larger the flocks under development are and the larger the pool of sheep to select from are the keys to enable confining the range of type resulting from successive crossing. This is why Stabiliser cattle are uniform because they are highly selected out of a data base of 1.4 million animals. The 4 flocks of EasyDams come out of a data base considerably larger with the advantage of the reproduction rate of sheep over cattle, then recombined in the UK further enhancing hybrid vigour ........ the free lunch.</p><p></p><p>I know the UK marketing of livestock is mainly through live markets where even a matchbox full of wool grown on the head can mean a discount. So its up to you to sort out what is appropriate for you in the appearance stakes and go for that. If you try to correctively breed, you will end up with more variability at the end point.</p><p></p><p>Some posters here suggest Exlana's. I have no experience with them.</p><p> Some breeders in NZ are experimenting with shedding sheep with some reverting back to crossing their imported shedding genetics over their base flocks of woolly sheep in an effort to retain as much as possible of their maternal trait advantage and gain the shedding genes by smaller increments with successive generations. Never lose sight of where the money comes from.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Global ovine, post: 8771099, member: 493"] I too would recommend crossing your Texel Mules with a ram of your chosen breed, and if it proves successful keep going. Why buy somebody else's cast offs with disease risk. Please keep in mind that some traits are very hard to gain because their heritability is very low. Unfortunately these tend to be the most influential in generating income and/or reducing costs (fertility, survival, thrift, longevity and disease resistance/resilience being in this group). All visual traits have higher heritabilities, but only affect the financials at carcass "harvest" time. The maternal traits are collectively worth 4 times that of the harvest traits. Already quoted in in this thread are Highlanders and EasyDam Composites. One has a reputation in NZ as being rather variable and but prolific and found on North Island steep hill country, marketed as Highlander. Whereas the other is sold under various brands each using the same breed mixes in NZ's deep South where the cooler climate sees all lambs finished on the farms where they were born. These have a different high fertility/milking component in their mix. But because both are multi generation Composites they have retained around three quarters of the hybrid vigour generated in the 3 way crossing resulting in excess of a 20% lift in productivity of the average of the 3 parent breeds. Uniformity results from the original breeders emphasis on type. Both Composites have a history of their foundation breeds being screened for very high performance traits. The foundation flocks from where EasyDams were sourced had a decade or so of further genetic development before combining. The larger the flocks under development are and the larger the pool of sheep to select from are the keys to enable confining the range of type resulting from successive crossing. This is why Stabiliser cattle are uniform because they are highly selected out of a data base of 1.4 million animals. The 4 flocks of EasyDams come out of a data base considerably larger with the advantage of the reproduction rate of sheep over cattle, then recombined in the UK further enhancing hybrid vigour ........ the free lunch. I know the UK marketing of livestock is mainly through live markets where even a matchbox full of wool grown on the head can mean a discount. So its up to you to sort out what is appropriate for you in the appearance stakes and go for that. If you try to correctively breed, you will end up with more variability at the end point. Some posters here suggest Exlana's. I have no experience with them. Some breeders in NZ are experimenting with shedding sheep with some reverting back to crossing their imported shedding genetics over their base flocks of woolly sheep in an effort to retain as much as possible of their maternal trait advantage and gain the shedding genes by smaller increments with successive generations. Never lose sight of where the money comes from. [/QUOTE]
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