Sheep Scanning

[neilo]

Cows 4 teats, max 2 calves, fine.
Sheep, 2 teats, max 4 lambs, equals serious design flaw in my opinion. It's the biggest thing that pees me off about sheep. How did it come about. Heard they actually bred the Cambridge to have lots of lambs. Can't think of a more stupid thing to do, but I am not a shepherd, just get dragged in at lambing time away from the arable.

Dr Alun Davies, who was involved with Cambridge sheep from the start and is still secretary of their Society, did set about breeding 4 teated ewes at one point. Through selection I seem to remember him saying they had got up to some sheep that had 50% of the rear quarters yields in their front quarters. If the project had carried on, they would no doubt have eventually managed to breed sheep with 4 equal quarters, like cows.
However, to support the extra yield needed to grow 3-4 lambs at a reasonable rate, the energy intake would be huge, and certainly not possible from simple, cheap grass.

Personally, extra teats is quite high up my list of culling offences.

As to triplets in a lowland situation, at least a field full of triplets can become a field full of twins, whereas a lot of ewes scanned with singles will never finish so many lambs. As long as you have a system where you don’t have to put a lot of expensive inputs into triplet bearing ewes, you are better to have a ruck of trips imo, even if you give away the extras, or rear them for no profit.
Maximum margin must surely be from every ewe rearing two, off cheap inputs (grazed grass).

 

[Ysgythan]

Cows 4 teats, max 2 calves, fine.
Sheep, 2 teats, max 4 lambs, equals serious design flaw in my opinion. It's the biggest thing that pees me off about sheep. How did it come about. Heard they actually bred the Cambridge to have lots of lambs. Can't think of a more stupid thing to do, but I am not a shepherd, just get dragged in at lambing time away from the arable.

he’s trolling you @neilo

 

[Ysgythan]

You'd go through a lot of pain before you got any sort of gain if you let ewes rear 3's with no help

why no help? Creep the lambs and wean early.

 

[unlacedgecko]

why no help? Creep the lambs and wean early.

It’s not cost effective to creep lambs on large scale every year.

If a ewe can’t do it off grass on her own I’m not interested.

 

[Nithsdale]

why no help? Creep the lambs and wean early.

It's not me wanting to do it...

 

[Ysgythan]

It’s not cost effective to creep lambs on large scale every year.

If a ewe can’t do it off grass on her own I’m not interested.

If ever there was a horses for courses argument it’s this. It’s also a bang for buck argument. A little input will turn in £££

 

[neilo]

It’s not cost effective to creep lambs on large scale every year.

If a ewe can’t do it off grass on her own I’m not interested.

So don’t leave three on anything then. A ewe cannot eat enough grass to produce enough milk to rear three properly. You either end up with a fooked udder, 2 badly done lambs and a runt, or 3 runts (ass7ming you don’t lose one, or all, of the outfit of course). If your system allows you to run those runts through cheaply to sell the following Spring, then maybe it can add up.

 

[Ysgythan]

It's not me wanting to do it...

Forgive me. We’ve done it and as long as you look after them they will manage and you’ll get a decent return.

 

[Agrivator]

Dr Alun Davies, who was involved with Cambridge sheep from the start and is still secretary of their Society, did set about breeding 4 teated ewes at one point. Through selection I seem to remember him saying they had got up to some sheep that had 50% of the rear quarters yields in their front quarters. If the project had carried on, they would no doubt have eventually managed to breed sheep with 4 equal quarters, like cows.
However, to support the extra yield needed to grow 3-4 lambs at a reasonable rate, the energy intake would be huge, and certainly not possible from simple, cheap grass.

Personally, extra teats is quite high up my list of culling offences.

As to triplets in a lowland situation, at least a field full of triplets can become a field full of twins, whereas a lot of ewes scanned with singles will never finish so many lambs. As long as you have a system where you don’t have to put a lot of expensive inputs into triplet bearing ewes, you are better to have a ruck of trips imo, even if you give away the extras, or rear them for no profit.
Maximum margin must surely be from every ewe rearing two, off cheap inputs (grazed grass).

When John Owen moved from Cambridge to Aberdeen, where he took the chair of Animal Husbandry at Aberdeen University and the ''then'' North of Scotland College of Agriculture, he took some of his Cambridge sheep with him.

The following spring, they lambed at Craibstone, and the lambs kept the incinerator at the vet lab going. They were a complete and utter disaster. It beggared belief that a Welshman and fluent Welsh speaker from Snowdonia could produce such useless pathetic sheep, although I suppose there wouldn't have been much to choose between them and the worst Welsh Mountains.

 

[Woolless]

It’s not cost effective to creep lambs on large scale every year.

If a ewe can’t do it off grass on her own I’m not interested.

A friend of mine calculated that creep feeding only paid when deadweight price was over £4/kg. That was a few years ago so it's probably more now.

 

[Ysgythan]

When John Owen moved from Cambridge to Aberdeen, where he took the chair of Animal Husbandry at Aberdeen University and the ''then'' North of Scotland College of Agriculture, he took some of his Cambridge sheep with him.

The following spring, they lambed at Craibstone, and the lambs kept the incinerator at the vet lab going. They were a complete and utter disaster. It beggared belief that a Welshman and fluent Welsh speaker from Snowdonia could produce such useless pathetic sheep, although I suppose there wouldn't have been much to choose between them and the worst Welsh Mountains.

buy the f**king best ones then...

 

[Ysgythan]

A friend of mine calculated that creep feeding only paid when deadweight price was over £4/kg. That was a few years ago so it's probably more now.

but if you’re only creeping the triplets that cost spreads over all the lambs, and the benefit of keeping productive ewes going needs to be factored in as well.

 

[Woolless]

but if you’re only creeping the triplets that cost spreads over all the lambs, and the benefit of keeping productive ewes going needs to be factored in as well.

Yes, I suppose there would be some special cases where it might pay you. Just thought it was a decent rule of thumb.

 

[neilo]

When John Owen moved from Cambridge to Aberdeen, where he took the chair of Animal Husbandry at Aberdeen University and the ''then'' North of Scotland College of Agriculture, he took some of his Cambridge sheep with him.

The following spring, they lambed at Craibstone, and the lambs kept the incinerator at the vet lab going. They were a complete and utter disaster. It beggared belief that a Welshman and fluent Welsh speaker from Snowdonia could produce such useless pathetic sheep, although I suppose there wouldn't have been much to choose between them and the worst Welsh Mountains.

There are many such examples from that era, where academics have ‘designed’ a sheep breed, very few of which hung around long.
To be fair to the Cambridge, I don’t think they were ever intended to be run as a purebred flock commercially (we had 50 purebreds at one time, scanning at 300%!), but as a genetic line to increase prolificacy dramatically they work well. I used to run a 7/8 & 15/16 Texel flock, bred up from Cambridge crosses, that consistently scanned at 225% (on no flushing) and sold 200% year in year out. The Cambridge certainly had a valuable input there, but unfortunately the Texel effect on lambing ease buggered that job.
My current Highlander flock is bred up from that flock, but now down to more sensible prolificacy levels.

8 did enquire last year, as to whether there were any Mv accredited ‘Camtex’ ewes about these days, and certainly wouldn’t be averse to bringing some of those genetics in again.

 

[Ysgythan]

Yes, I suppose there would be some special cases where it might pay you. Just thought it was a decent rule of thumb.

That’s the thing with rules of thumb, the exceptions make them.

 

[Agrivator]

A friend of mine calculated that creep feeding only paid when deadweight price was over £4/kg. That was a few years ago so it's probably more now.

So without a crystal ball, there's no way of knowing what way to turn.

 

[Nithsdale]

That’s the thing with rules of thumb, the exceptions make them.

Thought you were going to say depends on the size of the thumb

 

[unlacedgecko]

Dr Alun Davies, who was involved with Cambridge sheep from the start and is still secretary of their Society, did set about breeding 4 teated ewes at one point. Through selection I seem to remember him saying they had got up to some sheep that had 50% of the rear quarters yields in their front quarters. If the project had carried on, they would no doubt have eventually managed to breed sheep with 4 equal quarters, like cows.
However, to support the extra yield needed to grow 3-4 lambs at a reasonable rate, the energy intake would be huge, and certainly not possible from simple, cheap grass.

Personally, extra teats is quite high up my list of culling offences.

As to triplets in a lowland situation, at least a field full of triplets can become a field full of twins, whereas a lot of ewes scanned with singles will never finish so many lambs. As long as you have a system where you don’t have to put a lot of expensive inputs into triplet bearing ewes, you are better to have a ruck of trips imo, even if you give away the extras, or rear them for no profit.
Maximum margin must surely be from every ewe rearing two, off cheap inputs (grazed grass).

Breeding for four-teated ewes - Farmers Weekly

On the face of it, high prolificacy is a bonus for sheep producers, but in reality, triplets and quads are often seen as a nuisance. Limited feeding

www.fwi.co.uk

 

[muleman]

A friend of mine calculated that creep feeding only paid when deadweight price was over £4/kg. That was a few years ago so it's probably more now.

On his farm on his system....on other farms and systems creep feeding will pay.

 

[unlacedgecko]

On his farm on his system....on other farms and systems creep feeding will pay.

Without subs?