Suffolk or texel Rams?

[Hillfarmer18]

I have no experience with either currently however might be looking to get one or the other this year to produce fat lambs! Could anyone let me know which breed would be better in terms of lambing ease, growth rates, hardiness, ease of fattening etc?

Thanks in advance

 

[Nithsdale]

Out of those two... Texel every time.

Unless you get yourself a NZsuffolk from @easyram1

 

[Jackson4]

If you have good quality grass and ok climate and can find a moderate boned, well fleshed down type Suffolk then you might get them away quicker, and might be there or there abouts with price, however you will probably struggle to find anything without the shire horse looks the show scene likes at the moment and lambing time could break your heart, as well as fly strike and shirt arses etc. safer probably to get a texel if you can find a lighter boned head and better still not of a breeder who thinks huge briskets and a table for a body is good. They may not finish as quick though if that matters.

 

[glensman]

For what breed of ewes.

 

[IH 684]

Blue Texel, supposed to be easier lambing

 

[Ysgythan]

I'd say your management and the choice within the breeds could be more important than the choice between the breeds. They'd be pretty even on most of your criteria except hardiness (and vigour at birth) where the Texel wins hands down.

 

[sam1]

Neither. Charollais

 

[Guiggs]

Both can be hard work lambing if you buy the wrong ram, a lot of texels seem to be a long way down the road the suffolks went down a long time ago,
That said I'd take a texel over a Suffolk everyday of the week!

 

[M-J-G]

Neither. Charollais

Depends on how much of hill farmer @Hillfarmer18 is, as to how well that one would work out.

 

[sam1]

Agreed

 

[Ysgythan]

Neither. Charollais

Scotland has proven largely immune to their lure thus far. Can't really see that changing.

 

[Man_in_black]

Suftex? @easyram1

NZ types?

 

[Ysgythan]

The ram for the man who can't make a decision. Like the Innovis crossers.

 

[Bones]

If the ewes are scotch mules, either will do

 

[easyram1]

Pick your breeder first and then the breed. My reply will depend on your ewe type and on your management system. As @Man_in_black suggested we also have a third option the Sufftex of which we have 2 versions The "S" which is the the more Suffolky one and the "T" which is the more Texelly one and both of which introduce the benefits of hybrid vigour ( This should cause more earnest debate ! ). We have Performance Figures that allow all our breeds and variations to be compared in a single analysis.
All our sheep are dismissed by most UK Suffolk and Texel breeders in a similarly disparaging manner so I conclude that perhaps we are doing something right

 

[Ysgythan]

Not picking on you particularly @easyram1 - it's a general thing I have about crossbred rams. I'm parking this for now and will give you chapter and verse tomorrow.

 

[Jim75]

If the ewes are scotch mules, either will do

We use both texels and Suffolk over our scotch mules. Up until last summer the suffolk x would win hands down generally £5-10 /head difference through the store ring. Last summer it was turned on its head with the texels £10/head better off. We'd have a 50/50 split at tupping but this year it was more like 70/30 in the texels favour.

 

[Ysgythan]

Not picking on you particularly @easyram1 - it's a general thing I have about crossbred rams. I'm parking this for now and will give you chapter and verse tomorrow.

Here goes.

Hybrid vigour in the F1 cross is well documented. The reason the mule is such a better cross that's it's parents might suggest is that's it's parents are inbred. The F1 bounce then is huge.

However, the effect is not replicated by putting F1 on F1, especially if the four constituent breeds are different. It's not even as pronounced if you mate a pure animal and an F1 animal. In effect you've taken the advantage of hybrid vigour out earlier in the process. You can't have it twice.

If you breed up e.g. put a Suffolk on a mule and a Suffolk on the daughter and granddaughter etc you will lose the hybrid vigour as the bloodlines merge over the generations.

Which leads us to question why we breed pure at all. The answer to that is breeding true to type. Closely bred or line bred/inbred animals produce far more predictable results in terms of type. Bakewell's famous quote "like begets like". The downside is that your animals will get smaller and smaller over generations and will throw up genetic blips.

Dairy farmers have generated an inbreeding coefficient. If you want to see it in action look up anything on BASCO as it generates it for you and you can use it to predict the coefficient of planned matings. The pedigree Holstein boys don't want anything under a 9.

Ironically inbreeding gives a bounce on EBVs and there are examples of stock rams on BASCO in recorded flocks with a coefficient of over 30.

In producing butcher's lambs the message we should all take is that a consistent quality product is vital. If you put a Sufftex on a Mule you will get a broad range of types. That isn't consistency.

And I don't buy this idea that you blend breeds and get the best of both Worlds. Any Texel breeder who's bought a Lanark head to put on Kelso bodies looking for the best bits of both to come out will tell you that the result usually is that you will get a lot of lambs which have either or of what you're after, and another lot with neither. Why should it be any different in commercials?

If you are buying tups to cross on pure or crossbred ewes you will get the best result in hybrid vigour and consistency from a pure tup. That's not opinion, that's maths and its backed up in academic papers.

 

[Ysgythan]

And on a personal note @easyram1 i recall you taking a lot of interest in a stand we did with the South Wales Texel Breeders club at the NSA Wales sheep event in Merthyr Cynog in 2005. We had 8 breeds of common commercial ewes and Texel lambs in separate pens and a competition to match the lambs up with the ewes. The subliminal messages were

A - Texels stamp their lambs
B - Texels cross well with all sorts of ewes.

That only works if the rams used are pure.

 

[easyram1]

And on a personal note @easyram1 i recall you taking a lot of interest in a stand we did with the South Wales Texel Breeders club at the NSA Wales sheep event in Merthyr Cynog in 2005. We had 8 breeds of common commercial ewes and Texel lambs in separate pens and a competition to match the lambs up with the ewes. The subliminal messages were

A - Texels stamp their lambs
B - Texels cross well with all sorts of ewes.

That only works if the rams used are pure.

As I was manning the Suffolk Society stand that day my interest in what you were doing was the way in which you were rounding up literally 100s of names and addresses of potential customers for your Texel breeders. It was the first time I had seen that done and if I recall your refreshments were also very good. To be honest it was as good a marketing ploy as I have seen and the various crosses were really interesting