I know what you mean ,they have the look,but I think it is a dangerous road to go down as you are compromising lambing percentage and tightness of skin also with the southie you get a tail of lambs that are difficult to get to a marketable weight.
Increasing NCC scanning percentage
- Thread starter MJT
- Start date
Weather and high fluke levels I think, they were dosed for fluke, dipped and given a mineral drench before the tups went in but I think a bit of damage was already done and forage was short
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
So slightly off topic.
But what is the best tup to use on NCC ewes to breed a hybrid ewe to suit us in the lowlands. (odd I call myself a lowlander at 750 feet & some of it is on top of a hill)
But what is the best tup to use on NCC ewes to breed a hybrid ewe to suit us in the lowlands. (odd I call myself a lowlander at 750 feet & some of it is on top of a hill)
Now you’ve started it
I would say a BFL but many won’t, you get a tremendous gimmers lamb and the wethers fatten and grade well at decent weights. The ewes are good mothers, wear very well compared to their Swale bred sisters and produce a good cull ewe at the end
- Location
- Easter ross
For me, i think I’ll be adding a bit more aberfield into the mix along the line depending how they lamb this spring. Bought a pen of aberfield x cheviot Hoggs to try and put them back to the cheviot and they did over 200%. They’re gonna be big Sheep and look a bit silly next to our ncc gimmers but the proof will be in 5-6 weeks.
- Location
- Scottish Borders
Small scale here, only 40 odd pure ncc Cheviots. Tupped with Easyram texel last year, and incheoch bred lleyn this year . Ewe lambs are cracking by the texel, and in lamb to a homebred lleyn ram lamb !
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
You will know better than me, but don't the Irish like Suffolk x NCC ewe?, must be very big sheep though.
Yes it seems to be the breed of choice over there doing what the mule would be doing here but I only know a couple of guys using them over here
west coast angus
Member
So you don't get any advantage from highbred vigour? I thought they might increase fertility etc! Maybe they are too far behind to start with! We had a 114" of rain last year and it's really shown how important a good skin is, I have really been trying to keep size and buying big tups but maybe taken my eye off the skins, so maybe I should forget my Southie experiment!!
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Are Irish Suffolks & more likely Irish NCC different sheep to those this side of the water.
Would not want to be an Irish sheep shearer, Shepherd different matter.
Well, what’s a breed and what’s a type? NCC in this area tend to be border St Boswell type.
sheep breeder
Member
In Ireland a wicklow Cheviot and a Suffolk ram is used to get a speckled ewe which is then crossed to a terminal ram, the wicklow Cheviot is not as heavy boned as the ncc or Lairg and a bit longer. A ewe which is becoming very popular is a hilltex which is a horny crossed with a texel ram and then back to a terminal, the llyen is loosing ground due to small type of lambs produced.
Lamb mid march, wean first week or so in July, don't have grass in the back end to flush so ewes need to have built up condition
Do you sell your lambs store or finished ?
We are talking about different sheep,the Lairg type ewe is a smaller more compact sheep than the border type,this can be a problem in the Cheviot breed in that the word cheviot covers a whole range of white faced types. The one which is most commonly discussed on this forum is the Lairg type.
Fat and store,
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
My Dad used to say that weaning date was about the most important time of the year for raising lambing % the following year
Stuffed if I know, but I should pry mine off their mums I guess!
Stuffed if I know, but I should pry mine off their mums I guess!