TexX ewes - which Tup to use?

[easyram1]

Looking forward to the Ram Compare trial results @neilo?

I hope no one is so ill informed as to think that Ram Compare is going to provide a silver bullet for people to decide what is the best terminal breed. A trial that is being used to identify traits in specific sheep is NOT even intended to be a breed comparison. When it is widely acknowledged that in general there is more difference within a breed than between them even the question as to "What is the best breed for........? begs many questions .

 

[Nithsdale]

I hope no one is so ill informed as to think that Ram Compare is going to provide a silver bullet for people to decide what is the best terminal breed. A trial that is being used to identify traits in specific sheep is NOT even intended to be a breed comparison. When it is widely acknowledged that in general there is more difference within a breed than between them even the question as to "What is the best breed for........? begs many questions .

I'm not asking which is the best


Just what would folks use on TexX ewes, lambing outside...


Your Suffolk's are another good consideration very impressed with your lambs up at Thornhill

 

[easyram1]

I'm not asking which is the best


Just what would folks use on TexX ewes, lambing outside...


Your Suffolk's are another good consideration very impressed with your lambs up at Thornhill

I was not criticising your opening question but as ever so many replies end up with individuals promoting either what they have used or more usually what they have to sell. My real issue was with what I perceived as the assumption that Ram Compare would give us all lots of answers when I suspect it will just raise just more questions particularly when such disparate management systems on the trial farms have been used. I do not know the details but I understand that the CPT trials in NZ involve very large numbers of sheep that are performance recorded on very specifically located research farms ( latest farm is on hill country to reflect where the sheep are moving to.) Also it received massive initial funding from a major abattoir. Similarly the Irish Suffolk Texel comparison with NZ Suffolks and Texels is costing 1million Euros over 5 years and humungous sums of funding has and continues to be put into the whole of the Sheep Ireland Project. Ram Compare is definitely to be welcomed but I guess this 2 year scheme is more of pilot than a project and probably shows the shortage of funds available in the UK. I also understand that Ram Breeders in NZ pay pretty hefty sums to have rams included in the CPT and I am sure that most UK ram breeders would not be prepared to invest that much.

 

[CharcoalWally]

Your biggest issue for these Tex ewes in considering a sire is going to be the same one that it always is Nithy , and that is lamb survivability in your outdoor system in early March.

I'd be less concerned with what will leave a nice crossing lamb as I would be with what will leave most lambs alive on a roughish day , and in that aspect it's difficult to get away from the one thing you don't want - more Texel blood. Whatever else they give you , their lambs are considerably more cold resistant than other rams I've used.

@Archie made the excellent point on another thread that the Texel may be a touch slower , but at least you have the lambs alive to trade at the end of the project. For all the promotion that the Charollais breed receives on this forum , I'd say , as an ex customer of the breed , that what it does well , it does very well , but what it doesn't do well can leave you ruefully counting the cost at the end of the day.

When I switched to outdoor lambing , I found the switch to the Texel was a necessity. I started crossing them to the Char. females that were here , and the crossbred tups worked well - but that was on late April - May , not in March.

Otherwise , you know all you need to know about your own lleyn tups. I've been out of the Suffolk too long to comment on what they're like today , but , as they were , they were anything but straightforward at lambing time. After that though , there was little to compare for growth and kilos.

Quandaries , quandaries.......

 

[Tomo23]

Just for something different, if you want fast growing and are afraid of the charley, what about a Hampshire? Shouldn't be too wooly out of a Tex x mule.
What do you reckon @exmoor dave ?

Thats what i will be using on mine this year if I can source one relatively close. Although I am indoor lambing.

 

[MJT]

Had good experience with Hampshire and Dorset down Rams when working for few years away from home farm ! Lambs grow like stink out of texel X ewes, lovely tight coated looking lambs that weigh well and fatten with ease ! If you are leaning in that direction I'd say go for it ! Hampshire and Dorset downs would be a better choice than oxfords for sure.

 

[Bones]

Has the smaller blue texel being mentioned, as an option

 

[Woolless]

I hope no one is so ill informed as to think that Ram Compare is going to provide a silver bullet for people to decide what is the best terminal breed. A trial that is being used to identify traits in specific sheep is NOT even intended to be a breed comparison. When it is widely acknowledged that in general there is more difference within a breed than between them even the question as to "What is the best breed for........? begs many questions .

Clearly not but surely it will show where the trait leaders are for specific attributes and my guess is that they will be concentrated in one or two breeds for each trait. Endless posts have been expended on here giving advice on terminal sire breeds but it is horses for courses, after all.

Is there an input regarding lambing ease on the trial?

Edit: You're probably right, the trial should be a beginning rather than an end.

 

[polk_farmer]

We bought some tex x ewes this summer, trying to up numbers. Best ones going to lleyns, others going to NZ Suffolk

 

[neilo]

Looking forward to the Ram Compare trial results @neilo?

Ooh yes.

Not just for any possible personal gain, but to give more credibility and accuracy to performance recording, linking it more closely to the end product. The only tit bits of results I've heard so far, is that the fantastically high growth rate Rams have got lamb away earlier. Whether speed to market returns a better income than slower growth and better carcass grades (to varying degrees), will be an interesting one. I've always thought it was a balancing act, but am prepared to be proven wrong.

 

[Happy]

From reading this thread and the one a week or two back it would seem Charollais by far and away the most favoured tup for Tex X ewes but only in an indoor or late lambing situation.

Excuse my ignorance if it is available or being done at the moment but surely it should be possible for the Charollais breeders to breed a type with more wool cover on their and their lambs heads to counter this.

For me that's the only negative holding them back. Nothing else touches them for combination of easy lambing and growth rates but that's no good if they can't get past the first couple of hours of an outside lambing.

 

[Happy]

The other thread for those that couldn't find it.
A bit Groundhog Day maybe, but plenty good stuff in it.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/tip-for-tex-x-ewes.133576/#post-2818900

 

[neilo]

From reading this thread and the one a week or two back it would seem Charollais by far and away the most favoured tup for Tex X ewes but only in an indoor or late lambing situation.

Excuse my ignorance if it is available or being done at the moment but surely it should be possible for the Charollais breeders to breed a type with more wool cover on their and their lambs heads to counter this.

For me that's the only negative holding them back. Nothing else touches them for combination of easy lambing and growth rates but that's no good if they can't get past the first couple of hours of an outside lambing.

The Charollais breed generally has moved toward better wool/head cover and thicker skins over the last 20 years. I haven't intentionally bred wool into mine, but find that I shear half as much wool again from my yearling Rams, as I did 15-20 years ago. That's just the way the breed has gone generally, and rightly so IMO (speaking as a commercial lamb producer that lambs outdoors).
@andybk will be along shortly to accuse us all of crossbreeding, and put up some pictures of the thin skinned French types that we have moved away from.....

 

[neilo]

Your biggest issue for these Tex ewes in considering a sire is going to be the same one that it always is Nithy , and that is lamb survivability in your outdoor system in early March.

I'd be less concerned with what will leave a nice crossing lamb as I would be with what will leave most lambs alive on a roughish day ,

@Nithsdale Farmer , the answer is clear. Blackie all the way.

 

[ford4000]

I used charollais when I had texel x ewes, they grow into cracking lambs, which was just as well to make up for the hassle of texels being poor mothers and the lambs being soft

 

[Sheepfog]

I would go for a Suffolk or Charollais. Lamb Scotch mules to Suffolk & Texels and Texel x ewes to Charollais. All outdoor lambing starting mid March in Dumfries & Galloway on an upland/hill unit. Charollais cope fine if ewes have enough milk. Charollais & Suffolk tups homebred and recorded and finer commercial types.

 

[andybk]

@andybk will be along shortly to accuse us all of crossbreeding, and put up some pictures of the thin skinned French types that we have moved away from.....

oh the irony , isnt everyone cooing over the peeling texels these days and ones with bald patches ,

many french sheep arnt thin skinned ,(the pictures might look that way as most lambs are shorn pre sale (never be brave enough to do that here ) i bought three with good very tight southdown coats this year , ,yes they have bare heads and very slim shoulders , thats actually what a charollais looks like btw the french have never registered any with white head cover since the breed was formed , except flashes above eyes and but down the nose , so i wonder where all these uk charollais got all this hair from along with the straight hocks and big shoulders ? ,(or is it some hidden trait the brits have managed to breed in, a quick walk across the alley into the char x tex ring at builth might give a few hints ) , could it be they bred the arse end out in search of size , and took a short cut back ?
Been selling 80 +rams a year , here practically since the breed started in the uk indoor and outdoor lambing flocks , do you think we would still be here if they were as bad as you make out ?

 

[Yale]

http://www.innovis.org.uk/index.php/breeding-sheep/terminal-sires/primera/

?????

@RobP

 

[scholland]

Suffolk lambs off shet/chev x texel ewes. Born end of April into may. This batch averaged 41.8kg at shipping this week. Tups from logie durno and pirntaton. Biblical rain over night so not much of a bloom left on them!

 

[Bossfarmer]

ive never considered a lleyn what are their benefits, likewise if I were to lamb some texel x ewes outside in april/may would a beltex be hardy?