There more money in a lot o& the rare breeds than there is some o& the mainstream breeds, it’s all in the marketing
Sheep breeds why?
- Thread starter Aspiring Peasants
- Start date
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
only because technology hasnt caught up , doubt many processing changes since the 60s , basically its near valueless as a commodity with demand, it is valued and obstacles are overcome
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- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Absolutely. You just need to, and prepared to, persuade enough people that they really aren’t ‘rare for a reason’.
Of course the same skills are needed to capitalise on the latest crazes of Blue Texels, Swiss Valais, Dutch Spotted, etc as well as numerous other breeds that have come and rapidly gone over the years.
Compared to any other prodcuts used i clothing manufacturers I think wool will be the greenest by a long way, think what manufactururing goes into the production of nylon or even cotton. This plus the time wool products last and can be recycled makes it greener than the othera
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Does that mean 2 hill breeds, two Downland breeds and only space for 2 continentals ?I’m going to throw it out there ...... the number of breeds and types kept in the uk is daft. So much sentiment and foolishnesstin hat on! I’d give you lot the choice of six breeds and that’s it!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Not necessary to have that many. Government policy is to plant all the hills with trees and/or apex predators, and all the lowland areas will be growing veg and cereals. The bits between will be recreational areas for the public to take their dogs to cr*p, so only a limited requirement for a few pretty sheep for petting.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Over here in the East / SE I fear we will have all the farmland covered in housing estates and warehousing . Who needs food anyway you can get it cheap anywhere
- Location
- Fife
I have some very pretty Shetlands if anyone wants some highly efficient petting sheep.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Have you found away of getting close to them yet?
They’d perhaps be useful for running rings round an overweight Fido to give him some exercise.
- Location
- Fife
- Location
- Cheshire
Do you know where they are though... they might already be in someone’s back garden being petted!
Countryfile last night, chap with Hereford cattle saying how he was paid on eating quality. In Australia. It seems utterly bizarre that the rest of the world is using British breeds to produce meat that tastes good, whilst here folks openly laugh at the sheep we have as they are of 'poor confirmation'.
- Location
- Fife
What sheep you running?
they are. There’s two things wrong with the misty eyed view of British breeds - we had to breed the fat off them in the 80s. It couldn’t be business as usual then, even if we wanted it to be. Secondly there is no across the board premium for eating quality sufficient to drive the market in that direction. There just isn’t. Niche, of course, mainstream, nowhere near.
Standardisation has Ruined the eating quality of pork and chicken, beef is getting worse as it’s too bloody lean. Don’t ruin lamb as well, I wouldn’t buy any meat out of a supermarket anyway but the sooner we get paid on taste and eating quality the better. Sales of lamb and beef have rocketed during lock down as folk have started going back to the butchers and cooking more at home. The biggest and most frequent feedback is how much better the meat tastes. Native breeds, slaughtered local, hung properly, didn’t matter which breed or cross the feedback is the same
CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
Catch dog
Although I do understand some people bucket train them.
Had the funniest call out Sunday morning. Girl from the local mole valley called. “We have four Shetland’s, we want to jab and shear them, we have done three but we have been trying for two weeks to catch the fourth, can you help”, went down there and they were the least flocking, most mental shetlands I’ve ever met, and have met some right nutters. Walked into the field with the dogs and they immediately went in four different directions like little scotch rockets. “Do you have any objection to me just catching it?”, no was the answer. About 2 mins later the Shetland was being shorn and I was walking to my truck with a bag of beers
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I’m pretty sure the way he was being paid for ‘eating quality’ would have been a payment based on intramuscular fat (imf), as that’s the only way of measuring it in an abattoir I would have thought.
All sheep that have been through a CT scanner have had imf measured, and Signet generate an ebv based on those measurements.
It is a very different thing to the amount of fat under the skin, which the ultrasound scanner measures to generate a fat ebv, and which has thankfully been reduced from the sheep common in the 70’s (Suffolk x Clun anyone
).As you might expect, there is considerable variation within breeds, so there is room to raise imf levels if the will (& economic benefit) were there. The tools are already available to do so, but that would mean embracing taking actual measurements, performance recording and making selections based on those ebvs.
As an aside Beltexes, and by association Texels, would have to fall by the wayside. For 2 years I CT scanned pure Beltex lambs, run alongside pure Charollais on a grass only diet. The Charollais lambs average 5 times higher imf than the Beltexes, without me making any selections to increase it at all.
- Location
- Mendips Somerset
biggest disaster , for already mostly lean breeds , fair enough for the older down breeds that could get an inch of fat on them on good modern grazing , but most continentals and uk female breeds , that fat (mainly in marbling) provides the taste and the reserve that feeds the lamb .
The main problem is measuring fat levels on lambs that have been on a energy rich diet all their lives .totally differerent to natural levels from normal grazing
Portland, Manx, Dorset Horn, Wensley. Sell direct, Dorset as lamb but moving towards the Portland and Manx as hogget, hung for 12 days. Wont pretend it makes much money but that's a whole discussion about 'cheap' food.
edit: just as an aside, this year we put half the Dorset ewes to Dorset ram the other half to Portland ram, the difference in get up and go, survival rate of lambs etc was marked, which you would probably say is normal hybrid vigour but has really impressed.
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- Location
- Devon
The Americans also do shear testing for eating quality I believe.I’m pretty sure the way he was being paid for ‘eating quality’ would have been a payment based on intramuscular fat (imf), as that’s the only way of measuring it in an abattoir I would have thought.
All sheep that have been through a CT scanner have had imf measured, and Signet generate an ebv based on those measurements.
It is a very different thing to the amount of fat under the skin, which the ultrasound scanner measures to generate a fat ebv, and which has thankfully been reduced from the sheep common in the 70’s (Suffolk x Clun anyone
As you might expect, there is considerable variation within breeds, so there is room to raise imf levels if the will (& economic benefit) were there. The tools are already available to do so, but that would mean embracing taking actual measurements, performance recording and making selections based on those ebvs.
As an aside Beltexes, and by association Texels, would have to fall by the wayside. For 2 years I CT scanned pure Beltex lambs, run alongside pure Charollais on a grass only diet. The Charollais lambs average 5 times higher imf than the Beltexes, without me making any selections to increase it at all.