CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
Yeah. 1 stock tup every few years to cover the homebred ewes. Therefore the squad of commercial rams off him are homebred.
I'd rather do that than go out to buy a collection of bought in sires.
Rams
- Thread starter Mervyn
- Start date
I'd rather do that than go out to buy a collection of bought in sires.
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
Maybe it was and I'm not specifically aiming my comments at the OP, but we all know where these threads end up.
Less complaining, more action.
This is the problem - mixed messages - a ram buyer thinks people want un-fed rams because that's what they say, they act however by buying fed rams. So sellers think if they say they're un-fed but feed them anyway they'll get two customers instead of one.
The guys we buy stock tups off are the biggest feeders in the country. They have the best land in the country. We buy off them and take them to a damp smallholding in South Wales and introduce them to rushes. We can only do that by actively managing the tups, give them a transition period, a decent place over winter, move them around paddocks in summer so they aren't laying in their own sh!t under the same tree month after month.
There's nothing wrong with grass only. However from the Radio 4 program I put up on another thread, wheat is grass, maize is grass, even rice is grass. So there's grass and grass. I haven't got Aberdeenshire grass, Herefordshire grass or even Pembrokeshire grass. And those buggers are feeding anyway.
Yeah. 1 stock tup every few years to cover the homebred ewes. Therefore the squad of commercial rams off him are homebred.
I'd rather do that than go out to buy a collection of bought in sires.
That's how we started the pedigree flock. Lot to be said for it if you have the right ewes and do your research on the tups.
Maybe it was and I'm not specifically aiming my comments at the OP, but we all know where these threads end up.
Less complaining, more action.
Vote with your wallets
- Location
- N.Lincs
+1
Go and see them in their working clothes. You get to know nearly as much about them by looking at their home environment as by looking at the tups themselves.
Some, so I have been told are on hoppers their whole lives, the figure of ''£400 in them'' was mentioned. you don't get sheep the size of small elephants on fresh air! mine are fed ordinary creep (same as killing lambs) up to back fat scanning beginning of July, then weaned and off feed, this yrs shearlings started getting .5kg/day on the 10th July. nothing but grass in previous 12 months. I feed enough for them to saleable coming off the sort of farm and grass that we have here.
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
problem is the biggest framed sheep tend to be meated at mature weight and carp at 36-45kg , Have yet to see a 150kg+ ram have easy finish 40kg lambs on mules .
Then again size and bone usually win out in the ring , and builth / kelso attract that sort of sheep
That's the sort of sensible system which is harmed by an overreaction to excessive feeding.
Exactly. It's the easily fleshed lambs that make the hard compact shearlings that sell for about 75% of the average price.
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
It's the ultimate power.
then dont whine that the ram you bought fell to bits or the lambs wont finish , cos you will only repeat the same mistake next year , and the year after as well
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I do too, and expect to be able to, without wrapping in cotton wool.
If I've had no option but to have to buy from a 'feeder', then I will wean it down gradually, but I shouldn't have to and nor should any other buyer IMO.
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
Again , sorry , but who cares?
Let them whine , it's no concern of mine. If people want to carry on making that same mistake over and over again ad infinitum , that's up to them.
People can only empower themselves, nobody else can do it for them. Using your grey matter is a much under rated pastime.
That's fine because you're sensible and realise you're taking a risk with stress, infection and fighting. Fit rams can cope with the first two better that overfat ones, but are not immune, and they certainly aren't immune to the third.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I heard of someone locally that had a tidy Texel ram lamb that he wanted to take to the Royal Welsh as a shearling. After he'd finished tupping, he fetched him back and started feeding him as much fancy coarse ration as he could. It was the only animal that was on that feed, so it was easy to keep track of how much he used. He reckoned he ate 1.2t by the time he got to the show, where he was lost in the throng.
Another Charollais breeder back nearer home, openly told everyone who'd listen one year that he had managed to get his yearling rams up to 14lb/day. I heard that back from quite a few farmers in the local mart, who were all flabbergasted.
Of course, they just need to be treated carefully after they come off that type of feeding. You certainly wouldn't expect to let them actually serve ewes.......