Importing sheep genetics from New Zealand?

[Bury the Trash]

Self sufficient, self replacing breed with no docking or dagging. With Improved low micron wool, bare breach, better feet and worm resistance. There’s a few variants been trade marked, each with a focus. I’m looking for something that can handle tough winter conditions so the merinos are probably a no go.

Would be ideal if Short tails were included on that list as well, or is that what docking is or the same meaning as dagging ?
but Too much 'actual bareness' in some areas might not be so good for hardiness in harsh conditions remember.

 

[Jockers84]

Would be ideal if Short tails were included on that list as well.

Read closer “no docking” so short tail. Think that’s a major part of the ethical strap-line.

I understand how these go against the shedding mantra, but most sheep breeds grow wool, it might as well be a usable product rather than a byproduct.

 

[CopperBeech]

I’m fairly sure you could breed what you’re after a lot cheaper than importing it ?

 

[Bury the Trash]

Read closer “no docking” so short tail. Think that’s a major part of the ethical strap-line.

I understand how these go against the shedding mantra, but most sheep breeds grow wool, it might as well be a usable product rather than a byproduct.
Yes good call short tail ,as in ( Finn or even shorter possibly as long as 'bits' are fully covered.

I did read close ,read what i wrote following that line.
Yes good call short tail could be done here with time,ive seen many Lleyn with clean bellies and even Texel and of course plenty of mules do
its all there in them in some breed or other wether hear or overseas ,just needs committed long term selecting for (practical / ethical/call it what like) traits

 

[Jockers84]

I did read close ,read what i wrote following that line.
Yes good call short tail could be done here with time,ive seen many Lleyn with clean bellies and even Texel and of course plenty of mules do
its all there in them in some breed or other wether hear or overseas ,just needs committed long term selecting for (practical / ethical/call it what like) traits

Ah the irony of what I wrote, I do apologies, I was out checking the calving cows and never noticed the post before that.

Yes I agree something similar could be achieved here in the UK. I’m more of the school of thought to utilise someone else’s stabilised composite and piggy back onto the trademark.

 

[CopperBeech]

Ah the irony of what I wrote, I do apologies, I was out checking the calving cows and never noticed the post before that.

Yes I agree something similar could be achieved here in the UK. I’m more of the school of thought to utilise someone else’s stabilised composite and piggy back onto the trademark.

Thing is you’d only be importing a ram or maybe two. There are a lot of ifs.

 

[Jockers84]

Thing is you’d only be importing a ram or maybe two. There are a lot of ifs.

Yes - could/would take a few flushes to get any sort of numbers and could be a lemon.

Here’s another though I’ve wrestled with; to build numbers, which would be the best breed of ewe to put with them to give an F1 and then breed back up to a pure. Llyen was my thoughts but a South Country cheviot with a nice fleece would be a contender.

Tin hat on now lol

 

[unlacedgecko]

Yes - could/would take a few flushes to get any sort of numbers and could be a lemon.

Here’s another though I’ve wrestled with; to build numbers, which would be the best breed of ewe to put with them to give an F1 and then breed back up to a pure. Llyen was my thoughts but a South Country cheviot with a nice fleece would be a contender.

Tin hat on now lol

Shetland.

 

[CopperBeech]

Yes - could/would take a few flushes to get any sort of numbers and could be a lemon.

Here’s another though I’ve wrestled with; to build numbers, which would be the best breed of ewe to put with them to give an F1 and then breed back up to a pure. Llyen was my thoughts but a South Country cheviot with a nice fleece would be a contender.

Tin hat on now lol

Woolly sheep aren’t really my thing to be honest and I’m still slightly unsure what you’re trying to achieve ? But I would say that a good lleyn is a fairly good base for most things - it’s a very sort of average blank canvas sheep really. Nothing too extreme.

 

[neilo]

Yes - could/would take a few flushes to get any sort of numbers and could be a lemon.

Here’s another though I’ve wrestled with; to build numbers, which would be the best breed of ewe to put with them to give an F1 and then breed back up to a pure. Llyen was my thoughts but a South Country cheviot with a nice fleece would be a contender.

Tin hat on now lol

Lleyn? I thought you wanted something functional? (Tin hat on).

If you are wanting to breed ‘fine wool’ sheep, then surely you need to be keeping that trait, otherwise you are going to be many generations getting it back.
NZ Romney will be as close as you can get over here I’d have thought. Sourced right, they could also be worm resistant, low input, easy lambing sheep with good maternal traits.

Ultimately though, if you try to select on too many traits, you strangle progress in any of them.

 

[Jockers84]

Lleyn? I thought you wanted something functional? (Tin hat on).

If you are wanting to breed ‘fine wool’ sheep, then surely you need to be keeping that trait, otherwise you are going to be many generations getting it back.
NZ Romney will be as close as you can get over here I’d have thought. Sourced right, they could also be worm resistant, low input, easy lambing sheep with good maternal traits.

Ultimately though, if you try to select on too many traits, you strangle progress in any of them.

Yes a native Romney would be a good shout as there’s most likely a good swath of these genetics in them already. Just thought Llyen to give hybrid vigour, an all rounder, easier to maintain clean lines, decent size, short tail available, decent lambing %.

 

[CopperBeech]

Yes a native Romney would be a good shout as there’s most likely a good swath of these genetics in them already. Just thought Llyen to give hybrid vigour, an all rounder, easier to maintain clean lines, decent size, short tail available, decent lambing %.

To be for a Romney x lleyn is a pretty nice sheep if that sort of thing floats your boat.

 

[neilo]

Yes a native Romney would be a good shout as there’s most likely a good swath of these genetics in them already. Just thought Llyen to give hybrid vigour, an all rounder, easier to maintain clean lines, decent size, short tail available, decent lambing %.

I’m not so sure on the native (Kent?) Romneys tbh, most of the more progressive breeders will have introduced a bit of NZ blood into them now.

Plenty of choice in Romneys, and mostly in flocks that manage them on forage/outdoor lambing systems too. When I was looking at recorded Lleyn flocks, there were very few that lambed outside on forage only systems. They all had an excuse why they could never do that too, with several mentioning mismothering as a problem. They are near as bad as mules for huddling in a spot to lamb together in a heap.

As @CopperBeech posted, the Lleyn x Romney seems to work ok, from what I hear. Getting further away from your fine wool ambitions though.

 

[unlacedgecko]

I’m not so sure on the native (Kent?) Romneys tbh, most of the more progressive breeders will have introduced a bit of NZ blood into them now.

Plenty of choice in Romneys, and mostly in flocks that manage them on forage/outdoor lambing systems too. When I was looking at recorded Lleyn flocks, there were very few that lambed outside on forage only systems. They all had an excuse why they could never do that too, with several mentioning mismothering as a problem. They are near as bad as mules for huddling in a spot to lamb together in a heap.

As @CopperBeech posted, the Lleyn x Romney seems to work ok, from what I hear. Getting further away from your fine wool ambitions though.

You laugh. But I was being serious when I said Shetland.

I know of someone using a Romney over Shetland drafts. Apparently the plan is to then cross those ewe lambs with a Merino, with the wethers kept for 4 shearings.

 

[Moors Lad]

with the wethers kept for 4 shearings.

Their wool will have to be worth a bit to justify keeping them all year....... Unless he thinks he can persuade them to produce an odd lamb or two....

 

[unlacedgecko]

Their wool will have to be worth a bit to justify keeping them all year....... Unless he thinks he can persuade them to produce an odd lamb or two....

I think it was a combination of high quality high priced wool (produced on contract) and free grazing.

 

[Global ovine]

You laugh. But I was being serious when I said Shetland.

I know of someone using a Romney over Shetland drafts. Apparently the plan is to then cross those ewe lambs with a Merino, with the wethers kept for 4 shearings.

If ethical and functional (no tailing, no dagging, worm resistant, sound feet) with finer wool is the goal, then keep all Merino influence out of the mix. Merinos are very different to all other groupings of sheep breeds. They graze differently (browse) and have difficulty handling ryegrass based pastures. They are extremely susceptible to worms, footrot/scold and wool rot when in prolonged damp weather. And don't like intensive grazing behind electric wires.

To gain a wool premium, fineness is only part of the equation. Wool style is very important as that drives colour (brightness......the blue reading when tested) and bulk (ability to bounce back) as visually identified in staple structure and crimp.

There are options in the UK for shorter tails, shedding the low wool value areas and brighter bulkier fleece. Unless the fleece is sub 28 microns, bright and bulky, then don't expect to be paid a premium that will justify a breeding programme. The best premiums come with strings attached ..... such as working directly with a processor who dictates the wool type and it must be better than anything similar that can be sourced from the open market.

Many visual traits have medium to high heritability, meaning reasonably fast progress can be achieved in each generation. But the traits that pay the bills are mainly low heritability, such as number of lambs born, lambing ease/survival, efficiency based on adult liveweight and productive longevity. These traits should be in abundance in the foundation stock, because one can put in shedding genetics, short tails, finer wool etc. etc. and see immediately the progress, but breeding a low cost and higher production new composite takes many years of small increments per generation to achieve. Better that these hard to gain yet hard to lose traits are there in the first place. In a few years the UK subsidy system won't be there for farming, but for environmental reasons and changing sheep traits won't impress those with the new subsidy cheque books.

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

If ethical and functional (no tailing, no dagging, worm resistant, sound feet) with finer wool is the goal, then keep all Merino influence out of the mix. Merinos are very different to all other groupings of sheep breeds. They graze differently (browse) and have difficulty handling ryegrass based pastures. They are extremely susceptible to worms, footrot/scold and wool rot when in prolonged damp weather. And don't like intensive grazing behind electric wires.

To gain a wool premium, fineness is only part of the equation. Wool style is very important as that drives colour (brightness......the blue reading when tested) and bulk (ability to bounce back) as visually identified in staple structure and crimp.

There are options in the UK for shorter tails, shedding the low wool value areas and brighter bulkier fleece. Unless the fleece is sub 28 microns, bright and bulky, then don't expect to be paid a premium that will justify a breeding programme. The best premiums come with strings attached ..... such as working directly with a processor who dictates the wool type and it must be better than anything similar that can be sourced from the open market.

Many visual traits have medium to high heritability, meaning reasonably fast progress can be achieved in each generation. But the traits that pay the bills are mainly low heritability, such as number of lambs born, lambing ease/survival, efficiency based on adult liveweight and productive longevity. These traits should be in abundance in the foundation stock, because one can put in shedding genetics, short tails, finer wool etc. etc. and see immediately the progress, but breeding a low cost and higher production new composite takes many years of small increments per generation to achieve. Better that these hard to gain yet hard to lose traits are there in the first place. In a few years the UK subsidy system won't be there for farming, but for environmental reasons and changing sheep traits won't impress those with the new subsidy cheque books.

Many thanks for this explanation and your foresight on how any future subsidy system will pan out.

While many of these traits can be achieved here with lots of patience and many years work, I am a great believer in looking at what has already been achieved by others to get that functional sheep with the heritability traits already built in.
The fine wool project in Romneys has to be achieved without using Merino influence for the very reasons you have explained at the start of this post.

Very few people in the UK have any experience at all of the Merino, even if it is the most numerate breed in the world!!

 

[JD-Kid]

why not just get a good wooled IDF that will give yer a good spinning fleece around 23-25 micron good growths ok lambing % right ones quite bomb proof in the feet run on a oilly rag just got to breed the tail a bit shorter if thats yer bell ringer

 

[Global ovine]

why not just get a good wooled IDF that will give yer a good spinning fleece around 23-25 micron good growths ok lambing % right ones quite bomb proof in the feet run on a oilly rag just got to breed the tail a bit shorter if thats yer bell ringer

Having introduced Romney into Ile de France very successfully to harden the IDF feet and increase staple length for increased wool returns, I am confident it could be done in the UK if open faced/bare legged and fine and bright fleeced Romneys are used. About a third of the IDF we had had brilliantly white wool and bred that way. Those IDF that had tight short fleeces bred cross fibred fleeces that were prone to yellowing and even wool rot in long periods of warm humidity.
Never in my sheep breeding experience have I seen such hardy sheep. The ewes eat rubbish and thrive that Romneys go backwards on. Their lambs grew faster than all maternal breeds developed in NZ (in the NZ CPT Maternal growth rate rankings, our 3rd best lamb growth sire's progeny blew the field away and has never been superceded) translating to 3.5 weeks ahead of our straight Romneys (many of our Romney sires had ranked highly in the CPT over preceding years). All this was achieved in the deep south of NZ where the climate is more similar to much of the UK.

In latter years I experimented with crossing IDF over Merinos in traditional dry hard hill country. This certainly hardened up the progeny compared to straight Merinos and added milk and lambing %. But dyed in the wool Merino men could not to see beyond wool. The new owners of these IDF flocks have continued this programme of improving IDF wool for summer/autumn dry country traditionally used for low micron wool production.

As JD says; the tails will remain an issue, but our results showed that parasite resistance and much less dagginess was readily achievable with simple selection tools.