Pedigree Lleyns?

[Nithsdale]

Yeh along side mules and texel x mules. The pures lambs were far too slow at growing, pure ewes and even x lleyns had the worse mastitis ive seen, poor milk yields and never held there condition anything like a texel x mule does. If they worked like they have for you and some others id have a full flock of lleyns too but id never go back again.

Slow growing lambs compared to what though?


I'm really surprised at the mastitis and lack of milk comments (not just from you). I've had 2 ewes with mastitis this year (out of 600) - the first triplet ewe, her bag was buggered when she lambed and I got a ewe this morning... I can't recall any mastitis last year. The Lleyn does have a smaller bag with finer tits, compared to the Mule (which has big advantages in itself - less blown tits and no bags dragging on the ground for instance).
Hard to say what's going on there with not milking.




Sadly, as has been said many times before - the rapid growth of the breed meant a lot of people got on the bandwagon and graded up from any old sheep they had running. They didn't cull the crap, they were only interested in getting as many 'pure' as quickly as possible so that they could exploit the new found demand.

I won't deny the breed is made up of the good the bad and the ugly. That's why I don't really advocate buying females too much

 

[unlacedgecko]

Because if your planning a sheep business it's not as simple as that. The thread is about buying Lleyns to establish a viable flock of sheep. Now say I want a flock of 200 ewes and I go out and but 200 Lleyns. My experience and many other people who have tried them and commented above is that following the cull cull cull mantra rigidly then the majority of them would be culled after the first year at a financial loss which could be £50 to £60 per head. Yes you would have some gimmers coming forward from the decent ones but not enough to maintain the flock at 200 and so you would have to buy in again and repeat the process. If you don't cull them then you have years of working with a large part of your flock being underperforming sheep. Yes you would eventually get a decent flock by culling but it would be very expensive way of doing it. What I'm saying is that it would be more viable like to buy better sheep in the first place.

I think I'm right in saying Nithsdale Farmer originally had a flock of Scotch Mules which he crossed with Lleyns to get to where he is today. In that situation where you have got a base to start from then hard culling is viable but it's not if you are in the situation I outlined above. If Niths had used Cheviots or Texels or whatever other breed and farmed them in the same way then he would have ended up with a good flock of sheep as well.

200 ewes isn't a full time job. So off farm work must subsidize it. If you've got to do that might as well stick to a rigid culling policy.

You'll get a high performance flock quicker.

 

[Nithsdale]

200 ewes isn't a full time job. So off farm work must subsidize it. If you've got to do that might as well stick to a rigid culling policy.

You'll get a high performance flock quicker.

It'd be a full time job if they were 200 BFLs

 

[unlacedgecko]

It'd be a full time job if they were 200 BFLs

Full time job for part time wages ?

If I have my own stock, I intend for them to work for me, not the other way around.

 

[hubbahubba]

Slow growing lambs compared to what though?


I'm really surprised at the mastitis and lack of milk comments (not just from you). I've had 2 ewes with mastitis this year (out of 600) - the first triplet ewe, her bag was buggered when she lambed and I got a ewe this morning... I can't recall any mastitis last year. The Lleyn does have a smaller bag with finer tits, compared to the Mule (which has big advantages in itself - less blown tits and no bags dragging on the ground for instance).
Hard to say what's going on there with not milking.




Sadly, as has been said many times before - the rapid growth of the breed meant a lot of people got on the bandwagon and graded up from any old sheep they had running. They didn't cull the crap, they were only interested in getting as many 'pure' as quickly as possible so that they could exploit the new found demand.

I won't deny the breed is made up of the good the bad and the ugly. That's why I don't really advocate buying females too much

Slow finnishing compaired to texel x mule, 3/4 texel lambs and suffulk cross texels.... i sell my lambs dead and there confirmation wasnt what i am after as pures anyway. I bought females and 2 shearlings. I still have one of the tups and he goes over some texel x hoggs. Hes lasting well, might get one more season out him.

 

[Nithsdale]

Slow finnishing compaired to texel x mule, 3/4 texel lambs and suffulk cross texels.... i sell my lambs dead and there confirmation wasnt what i am after as pures anyway. I bought females and 2 shearlings. I still have one of the tups and he goes over some texel x hoggs. Hes lasting well, might get one more season out him.

But that should be expected, a maternal line will never be as quick growing as a Texel from a Mule, or a Suffolk... Mine are only a touch slower than the Texels. They also wont quite have that confirmation - again, they're a maternal line. But they do have a good carcase, all the same. My lambs go dead too.

Have you never tried keeping ewe lambs from the tup you have left to see how they'd do?
But from what you're saying, very few Maternal breeds would do what you want/expect

 

[hubbahubba]

But that should be expected, a maternal line will never be as quick growing as a Texel from a Mule, or a Suffolk... Mine are only a touch slower than the Texels. They also wont quite have that confirmation - again, they're a maternal line. But they do have a good carcase, all the same. My lambs go dead too.

Have you never tried keeping ewe lambs from the tup you have left to see how they'd do?

There is s few i have kept but im just not happy with them and thats why he goes to some ewe lambs and i dont keep lambs off them. I dont have any records or time scales but far too many of my pure lleyn lambs and cross lambs where running into the winter and i need them gone quicker.

 

[Nithsdale]

There is s few i have kept but im just not happy with them and thats why he goes to some ewe lambs and i dont keep lambs off them. I dont have any records or time scales but far too many of my pure lleyn lambs and cross lambs where running into the winter and i need them gone quicker.

That's fair enough. Everyone's farms and systems are different, as are our requirements from the stock we keep. I hope you find what you need in the BDM, I'll be interested to hear how you get on with them

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

200 ewes isn't a full time job. So off farm work must subsidize it. If you've got to do that might as well stick to a rigid culling policy.

You'll get a high performance flock quicker.

The figure of 200 ewes was just an example. The same figures per ewe would apply if it were 2000 ewes.

 

[pgk]

The figure of 200 ewes was just an example. The same figures per ewe would apply if it were 2000 ewes.

Looks to me like you need woolshedders, exlana if you want ones with figures, in our experience crossed to texel and a friends to charollais produce superb quick finished lambs. Bravely last two years we have kept some texel crosses back and put them back to exlana, lovely lambs. Next time we are going to try some to home bred chartex tups. Makes life a bit more interesting! Our incidence of mastitis has dropped since grading lleyns up to woolshedders. Have found one strain of bought in woolshedders bags drop at 7 years which me thinks comes from the Wiltshire's. The ones with a little lleyn in stay taught.

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

I'm not planning on changing what we do which is have a nucleus of mules crossed to Beltex or Texel to provide what are generally good breeding sheep. We then keep gimmers from these based on then being twins or triplets which needed minimal assistance at lambing all the way up to nearly pure Texel/Beltex.. So we have ended up with the flock in two sections, depending on how much Beltex/Texel is in them. The "B" flock which is mules, texel/Beltex x mules and some 3/4 ones we lamb the twins outside in April and the singles and triplets inside for obvious reasons. They graze our SDA land in summer. The "A" flock which I will admit stands for "assistance required" lamb inside in March and graze better land. This year their lambs have averaged £98 through the ring.

The point I was trying to make is that if you were setting up a commercial flock there is a lot more to it than cull, cull,cull and you could make an expensive mistake buying in a lot of Lleyns

 

[Optimus]

Well I find the opposite with my Lleyns.easy to lamb good mothers, grow really well on average grass.usually send wedder lambs to market at end end of August around 45kg.

Cross some with the texel an keep ewe lambs as replacements.

When I first bought them though I did buy at the top end.maybe that made a difference?

 

[hendrebc]

There is a hell of a lot of variation in lleyns. Everything from small wooly almost hill types to massive lowland ewes that would be more like a mule and everything in between. Some are very good and would compete with any of the best maternal sheep in the country and some are absolutely awful sheep you would be glad to see the back of. And everything in between again. Best advice I can think of if you want to buy females is to go and find a breeder that keeps sheep the way you want to keep them. Don't rush out and buy anything just because it's a lleyn because there is a good chance you will be disappointed. The big leggy showy types that everyone likes the look of are usually crap

On the culling thing I have to reluctantly agree with @Aspiring Peasants if you went out and bought a flock, especially without researching them properly, and culled everything you didn't like. You could end up losing a lot of money when it comes time to replace those ewes you have culled. It won't matter if it's only a few ewes but say 20 or more of those 200 you don't like for whatever reason end up being sold as £60 culls when you paid £150 for them it soon adds up. If you are going to replace those culled ewes with bought in ewes again you could end up with just as much problems or even worse sheep than what you culled. I don't see any reason to not keep problem ewes (within reason, a bad foot that got better for example I'd keep her. Not one that prolapsed or not rearing I'd cull those. Everyone should cull those) as long as they are put to a terminal sire and replacements aren't kept from them what's the issue? You will get there in time. Establishing a flock is not going to happen overnight. Unless you have unlimited money to keep replacing ewes which most people don't have. When I came home to farm we had 700ish ewes that had never been selected for anything other than being a female sheep that was likely to live to carry and rear a lamb from tupping to weaning. Ewe lambs were selected on size and not much else. When I started the first thing I bought was a pair of earnotch pliers and got to work notching everything I didn't like to put to terminal sires. I quickly found I wouldn't be able to breed good enough replacement ewe lambs fast enough so had to keep some ewe lambs from the b flock or I'd have very little sheep left... You still need stock on the farm or what are you going to keep? I'd have loved to go out and replace them with sheep like the ones I didn't earnotch. But how much would that have cost? It would have been tens of thousands and that would have been impossible and I still might have ended up with ewes poorer than what I'd culled. Buying in is no guarantee of better sheep. I know what my b flock ewes are capable of. They mostly rear lambs without any trouble. Might have to pull a few more than the a flock. Might have to trim a few more dirty arses or feet but that is still cheaper than going out and replacing them with other bought in sheep. You don't have to keep replacements from them remember.
After 10+ years I have 300ish ewes I'm happy with and 100ish I'm very happy with. The rest just produce killing lambs. But I have been handy with the earnotch pliers and bought the best rams I could find and afford. I think/hope next year or the year after I'll be able to start culling ewes for being a pain and replace them with my own bred ewe lambs so things should start to snowball after that and I can cull harder again. It takes time there is no getting away from it. Starting with cheap ewes (draft hill ewes or someone else's old ewes) is different they are almost disposable sheep you can get rid of them if they don't do as you expected you won't lose a lot of money if you haven't paid a lot for them. I'm assuming the op is going to buy shearlings in a sale which seems to be the done thing when you start to establish a flock.
Grading up from a decent base of ewes is different though you can cull a lot harder doing that because your ewes should be pretty good to start with and you will know what the flock is capable of already. If it's worse than the current flock get rid of not keep it. Simple. Not so simple starting from scratch.

Random ewe with her lleyn lambs max 14 days old. Born outside all done off grass.

I finally wore out and broke my trusty earnotch pliers this year. They've seen some use. I was notching some lambs that had to come in for some reason before they went out so they won't be kept. I'm not lambing inside before anyone asks why I'm in a shed.
That post went on longer than I expected

 

[hubbahubba]

There is a hell of a lot of variation in lleyns. Everything from small wooly almost hill types to massive lowland ewes that would be more like a mule and everything in between. Some are very good and would compete with any of the best maternal sheep in the country and some are absolutely awful sheep you would be glad to see the back of. And everything in between again. Best advice I can think of if you want to buy females is to go and find a breeder that keeps sheep the way you want to keep them. Don't rush out and buy anything just because it's a lleyn because there is a good chance you will be disappointed. The big leggy showy types that everyone likes the look of are usually crap

On the culling thing I have to reluctantly agree with @Aspiring Peasants if you went out and bought a flock, especially without researching them properly, and culled everything you didn't like. You could end up losing a lot of money when it comes time to replace those ewes you have culled. It won't matter if it's only a few ewes but say 20 or more of those 200 you don't like for whatever reason end up being sold as £60 culls when you paid £150 for them it soon adds up. If you are going to replace those culled ewes with bought in ewes again you could end up with just as much problems or even worse sheep than what you culled. I don't see any reason to not keep problem ewes (within reason, a bad foot that got better for example I'd keep her. Not one that prolapsed or not rearing I'd cull those. Everyone should cull those) as long as they are put to a terminal sire and replacements aren't kept from them what's the issue? You will get there in time. Establishing a flock is not going to happen overnight. Unless you have unlimited money to keep replacing ewes which most people don't have. When I came home to farm we had 700ish ewes that had never been selected for anything other than being a female sheep that was likely to live to carry and rear a lamb from tupping to weaning. Ewe lambs were selected on size and not much else. When I started the first thing I bought was a pair of earnotch pliers and got to work notching everything I didn't like to put to terminal sires. I quickly found I wouldn't be able to breed good enough replacement ewe lambs fast enough so had to keep some ewe lambs from the b flock or I'd have very little sheep left... You still need stock on the farm or what are you going to keep? I'd have loved to go out and replace them with sheep like the ones I didn't earnotch. But how much would that have cost? It would have been tens of thousands and that would have been impossible and I still might have ended up with ewes poorer than what I'd culled. Buying in is no guarantee of better sheep. I know what my b flock ewes are capable of. They mostly rear lambs without any trouble. Might have to pull a few more than the a flock. Might have to trim a few more dirty arses or feet but that is still cheaper than going out and replacing them with other bought in sheep. You don't have to keep replacements from them remember.
After 10+ years I have 300ish ewes I'm happy with and 100ish I'm very happy with. The rest just produce killing lambs. But I have been handy with the earnotch pliers and bought the best rams I could find and afford. I think/hope next year or the year after I'll be able to start culling ewes for being a pain and replace them with my own bred ewe lambs so things should start to snowball after that and I can cull harder again. It takes time there is no getting away from it. Starting with cheap ewes (draft hill ewes or someone else's old ewes) is different they are almost disposable sheep you can get rid of them if they don't do as you expected you won't lose a lot of money if you haven't paid a lot for them. I'm assuming the op is going to buy shearlings in a sale which seems to be the done thing when you start to establish a flock.
Grading up from a decent base of ewes is different though you can cull a lot harder doing that because your ewes should be pretty good to start with and you will know what the flock is capable of already. If it's worse than the current flock get rid of not keep it. Simple. Not so simple starting from scratch.
View attachment 875419
Random ewe with her lleyn lambs max 14 days old. Born outside all done off grass.
View attachment 875423
I finally wore out and broke my trusty earnotch pliers this year. They've seen some use. I was notching some lambs that had to come in for some reason before they went out so they won't be kept. I'm not lambing inside before anyone asks why I'm in a shed.
That post went on longer than I expected

I keep my rings at the exact same place.

 

[Cvx1170]

back in the day, they had bags drier than a witches tit

 

[Nithsdale]

The point I was trying to make is that if you were setting up a commercial flock there is a lot more to it than cull, cull,cull and you could make an expensive mistake buying in a lot of Lleyns

You could make an expensive mistake buying any sheep to start a new flock. Sadly, it is the risk and gamble you take with every new venture.


Stick with the 200 head example... If you were to wanting to start a brand new a flock of 200, you need deep pockets to buy them all in the first place! Even if you're selling 200 other ewes... the average for Lleyn gimmers at Carlisle was £160ish IIRC.


The pragmatic way to get into any new breed. Buy 50-80 gimmers and 20-40 ewe lambs of the type of sheep you want, in this instance Lleyns. Maybe if you're lucky you might can pick up a dispersal of aged ewes. They'll not be much more than cull price. This mitigates the potential of taking a hammering IF the operation fails and you have to offload the ewes - they should also be proven sheep. You might even can get a aged stock tup, again he will be proven.

(last time I needed females, I went to Carlisle and selected a pen of gimmers I wanted. Happily got them for less than I expected to pay... that was 2014. Those ewes are still here. There was also a dispersal of 300 ewes from Shrewsbury - genuine flock reduction being sold due to drought, and loss of land. I got 20 very good 6-8tooth ewes for £92 and the man's full mouthed stock tup for £80. Why the tup only made that I will never know, he was here 3 years and left some bloody good ewe lambs. I only sold him because I didn't know his age and expected him to drop dead when out working. I got £100 for him, cull).


You'd also retain 70-100 of the very best ewes you have. You can either cross these to the Lleyn or just use Terminal and kill the lambs... run these numbers down as the other ewes numbers increase. Again, mitigate the potential damage and losses if things went wrong.



Why, in your example, you want to go balls deep straight away and change everything lock stock in 1 go, instead of dipping your toe in a progressive manner, I have no idea. But if you take your approach, 9/10 you will fail because you're not giving yourself or the ewes a chance to learn and bed in. You're expecting 200 brand new ewes to just perform perfectly from the word go on land they've never been on before... its madness.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Starting with cheap ewes (draft hill ewes or someone else's old ewes) is different they are almost disposable sheep you can get rid of them if they don't do as you expected you won't lose a lot of money if you haven't paid a lot for them.

The only way to get into sheep which delivers an acceptable ROI. Buying a flock of ewe lambs or 2 tooth's would scare the shite out of me. Imagine having that much cash money invested in stock ???

 

[Aspiring Peasants]

You could make an expensive mistake buying any sheep to start a new flock. Sadly, it is the risk and gamble you take with every new venture.


Why, in your example, you want to go balls deep straight away and change everything lock stock in 1 go, instead of dipping your toe in a progressive manner, I have no idea. But if you take your approach, 9/10 you will fail because you're not giving yourself or the ewes a chance to learn and bed in. You're expecting 200 brand new ewes to just perform perfectly from the word go on land they've never been on before... its madness.

Because if you are setting a flock up from scratch which we did 10 years ago you have to get brand new ewes and you can't afford to dip your toe in because you wouldn't have enough stock for the farm, so you have to go balls deep straight away! I'm just glad we bought mules at the time

 

[Nithsdale]

Because if you are setting a flock up from scratch which we did 10 years ago you have to get brand new ewes and you can't afford to dip your toe in because you wouldn't have enough stock for the farm, so you have to go balls deep straight away! I'm just glad we bought mules at the time

The OP already has sheep!

 

[sherg]

We used to lamb about 600 lleyns, as a ewe i liked them the biggest trouble we had was the twinning percentage you'd get a lot of singles on year and a lot of trebles the next our scanner man said they were famous for it, we moved on to aberdales and we found them to be a far better ewe for us