TexX ewes - which Tup to use?

[Nithsdale]

Not much on tar, but it's a 3 - 4 mile drive to the wintering next door on a forestry road. And we have a 1/3mile road/track through the farm so it does clock up a bit on hard surface.

What I really meant was it'll probably get better tyres before next winter... although the 500 is about 80kg lighter than the diesel so might not scrub tyres quite so much

 

[Nithsdale]

Jings she's been cold here last night and today! Local mechanic has been ran off his feet as winter diesel has failed in modern tractors clogging up the filters! Too much bio diesel being used, apparently??

Decided to take a leap into the store ring with lambs... back at Wallets, Castle Douglas today with another 50. Trade is strong, so crack on and get them gone!

I believe I was 2nd highest price for the day (from what I saw, I did go for my lunch after I was through), with £77 for ChevX wedders out of my pure Lleyns. Tops were a nice pen of Texel lambs at £78.

My other 2 pens made £74 and £69 - and were a mix of both Tex and pure Lleyns, just drawn on size.
They were a middle draw of lambs, nice cover but nowhere near ready. I've kept the fittest and I've kept the worst. Never weighed but I'd guess 34-38kg. The Chev's were bigger probably 40-44kg.

I had some very nice compliments from the McTaggart brothers as I left the ring... who keeps saying Lleyn bred lambs are sh*t????

I averaged £83.33 last week for the 50 fats and I've averaged £71 today. For the 100 I've averaged £77.16. Very happy with that considering where trade was, not even a month ago!!


Aiming for another load of 50 away fat on Wednesday to Dumfries, but I need to see how they're weighing first...

 

[Kip]

That’s a grand trade for your lambs! Have you been feeding them for a while?

 

[Nithsdale]

That’s a grand trade for your lambs! Have you been feeding them for a while?

Thanks. I don't often get things right but I think I've read Brexit and the lamb trade pretty good this year so far, very pleased at the moment.

Started feeding them on 25th October - so 3 1/2 weeks ago. Really stepped them up the last 10 days, they're currently on 3lb/hd split over 2 feeds first and last thing each day with the snacker. First year I've fed fat lambs with it - I usually use the Portequip hoppers, but I think so far the snacker is better because everything comes in for a feed and both the lambs and ground are alot cleaner

 

[firther]

looking at your lambs I might well try a llyen tup next year and keep gimmers back. I been thinking about it before after reading your posts. some cracking lambs there

 

[hendrebc]

looking at your lambs I might well try a llyen tup next year and keep gimmers back. I been thinking about it before after reading your posts. some cracking lambs there

I say this to everyone who considers a lleyn. Be very careful choosing your ram. There are so many poor ones out there it's getting difficult to find a good one. A good one is worth having though

 

[Nithsdale]

looking at your lambs I might well try a llyen tup next year and keep gimmers back. I been thinking about it before after reading your posts. some cracking lambs there

As @hendrebc has just said. Be careful of what you buy... but get it right and you'll have no regrets.

The next few years could be quite important for Lleyn. I'm disappointed how many poor rams there are at sales but there's very strong demand for both rams and females so these poorer tups are being used to breed females... the best stock are bloody expensive (beyond commercial prices, IMO) so the breeders need to be careful they don't switch off their customers by paying over the odds for the poorer stock.

Too many have bought a bad tup thinking they're all the same (poor stockman's eye) and now badmouth the entire breed.

 

[hendrebc]

As @hendrebc has just said. Be careful of what you buy... but get it right and you'll have no regrets.

The next few years could be quite important for Lleyn. I'm disappointed how many poor rams there are at sales but there's very strong demand for both rams and females so these poorer tups are being used to breed females... the best stock are bloody expensive (beyond commercial prices, IMO) so the breeders need to be careful they don't switch off their customers by paying over the odds for the poorer stock.

Too many have bought a bad tup thinking they're all the same (poor stockman's eye) and now badmouth the entire breed.

I hadn't been to a ram sale in a few years till this September when I went to ruthin for the lleyn society sale. I was very disappointed with the standard there and if one breeder who I bought off hadn't been there is have gone home before the sale even started. There were a few in a few pens but not enough pick to get excited about.
Plenty of nice ewes and ewe lambs there from the same breeders so i don't know how they do that. Feeding maybe? Avoid anything that looks like it's been fed it's a really bad sign I've found. Usually the ones that are performance recorded are better as a rule even if their figures aren't that great. A lot of them are recorded but the breeders won't tell you because they are less than top 25%. Or that's what I've found anyway.
Oh and make sure you have a look at the ram breeders females. It will give you an idea what your lambs will look like. That's more important that what the actual ram you buy looks like I think. That's his job after all making decent daughters not looking smart. He could look like a goat for all I care as long as his daughters come out nice.

 

[Nithsdale]

I hadn't been to a ram sale in a few years till this September when I went to ruthin for the lleyn society sale. I was very disappointed with the standard there and if one breeder who I bought off hadn't been there is have gone home before the sale even started. There were a few in a few pens but not enough pick to get excited about.
Plenty of nice ewes and ewe lambs there from the same breeders so i don't know how they do that. Feeding maybe? Avoid anything that looks like it's been fed it's a really bad sign I've found. Usually the ones that are performance recorded are better as a rule even if their figures aren't that great. A lot of them are recorded but the breeders won't tell you because they are less than top 25%. Or that's what I've found anyway.
Oh and make sure you have a look at the ram breeders females. It will give you an idea what your lambs will look like. That's more important that what the actual ram you buy looks like I think. That's his job after all making decent daughters not looking smart. He could look like a goat for all I care as long as his daughters come out nice.

That's the 1 thing I do like about Lleyn sales - the stipulation that a vendor must sell X females to allow them to sell a rams.

You can see what their breeding is like... but as you hinted at. I've seen lots of good looking Gimmers or lambs from a vendor and you think ok I might be interested in their tups... but the tups come in and you're like WTF. I'm not sure how they do it either

 

[spark_28]

what would you be looking for in a lleyn tup then? im hoping to start selling rams but have juts started with the 20 sheep ive got. Im well aware its not going to happen overnight.

No lleyns around me but the people that have seen mine have been impressed and like them. Crofters all around ehre using cheviot mostly. I really dont see how the lleyn cant push them out and give them better sheep for the ground they are on. Cheviot lambs dont make any more than lleyn and the lleyn is a better ewe imo.

 

[Nithsdale]

what would you be looking for in a lleyn tup then? im hoping to start selling rams but have juts started with the 20 sheep ive got. Im well aware its not going to happen overnight.

Easiest way to answer that is this

 

[firther]

As @hendrebc has just said. Be careful of what you buy... but get it right and you'll have no regrets.

The next few years could be quite important for Lleyn. I'm disappointed how many poor rams there are at sales but there's very strong demand for both rams and females so these poorer tups are being used to breed females... the best stock are bloody expensive (beyond commercial prices, IMO) so the breeders need to be careful they don't switch off their customers by paying over the odds for the poorer stock.

Too many have bought a bad tup thinking they're all the same (poor stockman's eye) and now badmouth the entire breed.

cheers lads, so question is now is were do I buy a good quality tup from, i can pick out a good texel etc but i don't even know a lleyn breeder

 

[firther]

I say this to everyone who considers a lleyn. Be very careful choosing your ram. There are so many poor ones out there it's getting difficult to find a good one. A good one is worth having though

is that because they have become more commercialised then and every man an his dog have jumped on band wagon

 

[spark_28]

Easiest way to answer that is this
View attachment 844620View attachment 844621

so weight then.....

is he homebred or did you get him from somewhere. what do your pure ewes look like?

 

[Nithsdale]

No lleyns around me but the people that have seen mine have been impressed and like them. Crofters all around ehre using cheviot mostly. I really dont see how the lleyn cant push them out and give them better sheep for the ground they are on. Cheviot lambs dont make any more than lleyn and the lleyn is a better ewe imo.

The hill next door (windfarm where my hoggs winter), and ours, were traditionally Cheviot hills and switched to Blackies when popularity grew for the Grayface and Scotch Mule...

Well I'm running Lleyns on my hill no problems and I would, without hesitation, run Lleyns on the moor where the turbines are if I was granted permission or a tenancy by the estate.

I put the NCC into my flock to give a lift of fresh blood (I'm not worried about being pedigree pure) and open the fleece a little as my ewes are getting too tight skinned... plus the ChevX ewes - Im keeping their Tex ewe lambs and these are the ones going to go to the Suffolk tup

 

[Nithsdale]

so weight then.....

is he homebred or did you get him from somewhere. what do your pure ewes look like?

Depth of body, deep body usually means a larger rumen so they can handle poorer grasses... you'll already know that means they survive on hill but are also easy fleshing when they go onto better grass. But shape, too. And I dislike too much leg/frame as they tend to stay raw and never finish.

He is Homebred. His father looked very similar... I'll try and dig out a good picture of the ewes

 

[Nithsdale]

Hopefully these give you an idea of my ewes. All pictures are of the group I breed my ewe lambs from. The lambs are all pure Lleyn, of Chev cross.


Here are this year's Gimmers, as hoggs, back in April (1st pic) and then at shearing in June

 

[hendrebc]

is that because they have become more commercialised then and every man an his dog have jumped on band wagon

Lleyns problem is that because they are a maternal breed everyone has hundreds of them. If everyone has 100+ ewe lambs to keep then they have just as many ram lambs to choose from too. So everyone's best ram lambs get kept to try and sell for a bit extra as breeders when they really aren't that good and should have been killed. That's why so many people get bad experiences with them. They just end up with someone's best looking ram lamb. Just because it was the best one on that farm doesn't mean it's any good at all compared to a better bred one from somewhere else.
Another thing that did a lot of damage was people wanted them bigger. So just kept the biggest ram lambs to use every year (and completely ignoring everything else) until they had stretched them into a really soft mule type sheep. Fine for lowland farms but no good anywhere else where they have to graze and work for a living. I had some of those here and they were awful. Ram lambs would get to 50kg by November and be so skin and bone and would take a lot of feeding to finish.
The first lleyns we had were small and wooly and got fat off fresh air. And we're very prolific just like they are advertised buy that type is hard to find now. They were a proper upland almost hill sheep.
The more modern type is a bit like the old fashioned type but look like they have had some texel blood in them somewhere. Maybe they have, they are squareish in shape. Doesn't bother me either way. They do look like what my old fashioned type did when crossed with a texel.
I don't know of any of the really prolific strains anymore either that seems to have gone in the last 10 years. Hadn't really thought about that till recently.

 

[cheviot53]

When I first saw Llyen's in the early 80's they were small, long , meaty very prolific and milky , very uncommon except on the peninsula , then in the 90's when I went to buy Texel rams on farm in the Scottish border's they seemed to be on a lot of Texel breeders farms and had grown in size but still well shaped .

 

[Nithsdale]

The first lleyns we had were small and wooly and got fat off fresh air. And we're very prolific just like they are advertised buy that type is hard to find now. They were a proper upland almost hill sheep.

The rest of your post is right... But this bit most important - and specifically the bit I've highlighted.

A lot of people think the Lleyn is a lowland ewe to replace the Mule or Halfbred...

No - she's an upland hill ewe to run on poor/marginal ground and still produce quality breeding and fat stock. I've always called her a hill type ewe. I've always maintained she would run, and thrive, on many places I see Blackies and Cheviots