Taking off triplets - Why do we bother?

[yellowbelly]

Weaned our last mob of hoggs today. In with them were some triplets that we'd left on 'cos Mrs Y B had far more cades than was good for her at that time and we'd nothing available to foster on to.

We've always followed the mantra that "If you leave triplets on, you end up with four bad sheep."

However, these few must be the exception that prove the rule....

As they were in the hogg mob, they had access to creep for 3 or 4 weeks, but have only been in grass since.
The first and last ewes in the list are EasyCares, one of the others is a mule and the others are Texel crosses.
All their bags are fine

Makes me wonder why we buy all that expensive lamb milk

 

[CaliMo]

were these trips that were a similar size to each other when they were born? Often there is one that is tiny or one that is giant and in that case would it make a difference do you think?

 

[neilo]

Wow. Those Charollais crosses really leave the Texels standing.....?







Ok, we’d won’t mention the Lincoln crosses, but then I suppose a lot of their weight will be wool anyway.?

 

[yellowbelly]

were these trips that were a similar size to each other when they were born? Often there is one that is tiny or one that is giant and in that case would it make a difference do you think?

From what I can remember, they would be fairly evenly matched, except for the 3 that were by the Lincoln tup. These were an 'unplanned cross' - a Lincoln tup lamb got into the EasyCares one night, that's why they were born earlier than the rest. The male one was much smaller and Mrs Y B helped him out with a bottle, now and again, for a couple of weeks. It seems it did him a bit of good 'cos he's now the biggest.

 

[yellowbelly]

Wow. Those Charollais crosses really leave the Texels standing.....?

You'll notice that the tup's code is N - as in N for Neilo. That tup certainly 'does what it says on the tin'

Ok, we’d won’t mention the Lincoln crosses, but then I suppose a lot of their weight will be wool anyway.?

They're a fair bit older - born out of sync with the rest due to a randy ram lamb

 

[RushesToo]

@yellowbelly I won't ask the question about why you are keeping easy cares and Lincolns because that is best left unknown.

I think you should give Mrs. YB a raise because she seems to have cracked it - and probably cull a few texels.

 

[neilo]

To be fair, they’re all pretty good weights for April born multiples, let alone triplets.?

Can I send all my lambs up for you (& Mrs YB) to look after next year please?

 

[yellowbelly]

I think you should give Mrs. YB a raise because she seems to have cracked it

Sshhh - she occasionally looks in on here, don't go giving her ideas

and probably cull a few texels.

As soon as @neilo breeds a Charolais that leaves his lambs with white faces I will. Unfortunately where we sell ours live, white faces consistently make £5/head more.

 

[yellowbelly]

To be fair, they’re all pretty good weights for April born multiples, let alone triplets.?

Can I send all my lambs up for you (& Mrs YB) to look after next year please?

Unfortunately it's not always as good a year for growing grass over here as this has been

 

[neilo]

As soon as @neilo breeds a Charolais that leaves his lambs with white faces I will. Unfortunately where we sell ours live, white faces consistently make £5/head more.

But 3kg (& more ime) lighter?

I do have plenty of well covered ones too, if you insist on looking at the front end before the rear.

 

[Al R]

I had a glamorgan gummer 2 years ago with exlana sired lambs (3 ewe lambs) completely unfed pre and post lambing but on grass and they were as good as the twins in the field all the way along! So this year due to a bad scanning ratio I left 10 sets of triplets out on 5 year old texelX ewes, all reared them as well as the twins in the fields with them - the plan was to have a few in a fields with the ewe lamb twins and creep them but didn’t in the end as they did them so well.

Btw - nice to see a graph like that that gives real data of the ewes and lambs ability!

 

[yellowbelly]

Btw - nice to see a graph like that that gives real data of the ewes and lambs ability!

Good way to find your best performing ewes,IMHO.
Just need to be aware not to let different performing tups 'mask' the results.

 

[Al R]

Good way to find your best performing ewes,IMHO.
Just need to be aware not to let different performing tups 'mask' the results.

Yeah I can see it looks really good with you, I’ve never seen comparison graphs like that before - I had planned on doing my early lambing flock that i keep rams from but the main flock would never work tagging lambs and recording ewes.

 

[yellowbelly]

But 3kg (& more ime) lighter?

In the early lambing ewes (which,as you know, is why we have him) he gets lambs to the same weight as the Texels 15 to 20 days sooner. As these lambs are only 80 -100 days old, the difference in face colour isn't very noticeable (all out of white faced ewes) and they are sold in mixed pens with no penalty.

I do have plenty of well covered ones too, if you insist on looking at the front end before the rear.

Tell that to the buyers ? - it's madness. We use him again in a later mob (where the aforementioned triplets have come from). These lambs are older when they go and that's when they consistently get the 'racially prejudiced' £5 hit on lambs which, IMHO, handle just the same ?.

 

[ford4000]

We used to leave 20-25 triplets on before we bought an automatic milk feeder,feeding them 600g of nuts twice a day and licks in a field with plenty of grass. 30% would do a good job, 30% would manage and the remainder would be a failure, needing 1 lamb to be removed, or worse needing attention for sore teats or mastitis.

 

[yellowbelly]

We used to leave 20-25 triplets on before we bought an automatic milk feeder,feeding them 600g of nuts twice a day and licks in a field with plenty of grass. 30% would do a good job, 30% would manage and the remainder would be a failure, needing 1 lamb to be removed, or worse needing attention for sore teats or mastitis.

Yeah, I think we've been lucky with these - there are 3 or 4 in the mob that have gone wrong in their bags but they are hoggs that have had twins

 

[pgk]

In the early lambing ewes (which,as you know, is why we have him) he gets lambs to the same weight as the Texels 15 to 20 days sooner. As these lambs are only 80 -100 days old, the difference in face colour isn't very noticeable (all out of white faced ewes) and they are sold in mixed pens with no penalty.

Tell that to the buyers ? - it's madness. We use him again in a later mob (where the aforementioned triplets have come from). These lambs are older when they go and that's when they consistently get the 'racially prejudiced' £5 hit on lambs which, IMHO, handle just the same ?.

You should see the difference locally with Hampshire crosses, we used to put in stonking lambs which were always 5/6p per kilo behind the market average. Wish I had put them in d/wt in hindsight.

 

[ford4000]

Yeah, I think we've been lucky with these - there are 3 or 4 in the mob that have gone wrong in their bags but they are hoggs that have had twins

I think hoggs with twins are worse than triplets, about half mine had twins this year and I pulled 1 off them all except the very last one (due to lazyness of not wanting another pet at the end of 2 months of lambing) she reared them OK for 2 months then got mastitis ? sheep punish you at every opportunity

 

[Woolless]

I think hoggs with twins are worse than triplets, about half mine had twins this year and I pulled 1 off them all except the very last one (due to lazyness of not wanting another pet at the end of 2 months of lambing) she reared them OK for 2 months then got mastitis ? sheep punish you at every opportunity

I would agree with that. You don't always get rewarded for doing the right thing but rest assured if you do the wrong thing you'll get a kicking with sheep!

 

[Woolless]

You should see the difference locally with Hampshire crosses, we used to put in stonking lambs which were always 5/6p per kilo behind the market average. Wish I had put them in d/wt in hindsight.

Yes, we wouldn't want to be without the marts but sometimes 'sell live and thrive' has a hollow ring to it...