Thinking of buying Pedigree Sheep!

cowboysupper

Member
Mixed Farmer
Hello. I’m seriously considering purchasing a few in lamb Texel ewes at upcoming winter sales. I have a budget of £1500-£2000. Would it be worth it?

I'd be inclined to hold off until next summer, do some research on the type of sheep you want to breed and identify the breeders you want to buy off, preferably off farm. Do not source from the 'top tier' breeders who run their own sales, you will get fleeced. They've been feeding their ewes destined for sale for months now and every single one of them will have reserves to make sure the sale report is positively gleaming to attract more buyers next year.

If intent on buying in lamb ewes at your budget, stick to ewes with good commercial traits with feminine heads. Ewes with buckets heads are a disaster.
 

z.man

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
central scotland
Have to agree with you about avoiding the inlamb ewe, have bought a few over the years and mostly for the blood line for the following year. An odd one has done ok. Would rather buy ewe lambs and have them use to our system before lambing, the same way always buy a young bull to grow on on farm and get use to home set up.
The one thing about pedigree breeding is as also stated you make great friends at the game and usually at your own level. The top lads don’t want to know the lads below them, as this is about keeping up with the jones and don’t want to giveaway any secrets. Over the years a few of the top lads will be very genuine and friendly and very helpful but are few and far between.
If you are getting into a few pedigree it is a disease, but can be very enjoyable for young kids and builds character, our youngest is lambing ewes since she was 5 years old and at 11 made our breeds judging panel standard and is better judge of sheep and cattle than myself now. The other girl is into the genetics side of sheep and knows the blood lines better than me.
This is very true we all need something to keep us motivated/interested even better if it encourages another generation, it is certainly character building at times as well, I remember being left to sell my Suffolk ram lambs when I was 16 on a really sticky day ......you don’t forget those days just like you don’t forget when you’ve been blatantly cheated by a judge at a show because your not in the in crowd but on the whole the sheep are great fun
 
This is very true we all need something to keep us motivated/interested even better if it encourages another generation, it is certainly character building at times as well, I remember being left to sell my Suffolk ram lambs when I was 16 on a really sticky day ......you don’t forget those days just like you don’t forget when you’ve been blatantly cheated by a judge at a show because your not in the in crowd but on the whole the sheep are great fun
Have to agree with you about the interests, was the same about selling my own sheep in the mart at 15, as for the judging down that road too..at one show a number of years ago a very big breeder who was a great help to us starting out gave me his best ewe lamb to show out of his 4 entry’s in the class the judge put me out in the first pick and put the breeder in first place with his worst lamb and made a fool of himself by putting me out with the best lamb and afterwards the breeder asked him why he put my lamb out and that he owned the lamb.
One of the first society sale we attended we were put 4th in the class and had the top price for the whole sale and the judge was the talk of the sale for getting it so wrong.
The best part of breeding is the friends you make and the info and advice you get and after sales the craic and as one of the best friends we have made says Une beer and fun.
 

gwi1890

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North wales
I started my flock buying inlamb ewes from various flock you soon find out who’s who what’s what and who to avoid, I ran across all kinds of problems in the beginning from mastitis to cesareans and various other things it was tough going luckily my uncle gave me 2 of his best ewes when he was retiring and that’s the base of my flock now, never get mastitis which was huge problem in other lines in my flock which have all been culled through the fat ring opposed to the in lambs sales (why pass problems onto other people)
One thing that’s guaranteed is you will lose money but if you persevere things will get better , do some research and have a clear idea which route you want to go down.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
A pedigree breeder I once did work for told me if your buying in lamb ewes in a sale, give them a shot of antibiotics before you load them. He'd had all the problems buying in ewes and said it was the only way to ensure a good chance of live lambs out of the ewes or the stress was too much for them. Probably because they'd been fed too hard and they couldn't cope with the stress or mixing with other flocks and picking up diseases. He'd learnt the hard way by the sounds of it.
 
Ive always wondered how those expencive in lamb ewes do and going buy these comments they don't. Will have the same problems as one costing 100£,prolapse, no milk, dead lmbs. If you get a couple of tups to sell you will get killing price as your a nobody in the tup breeding world.
 

cowboysupper

Member
Mixed Farmer
Ive always wondered how those expencive in lamb ewes do and going buy these comments they don't. Will have the same problems as one costing 100£,prolapse, no milk, dead lmbs. If you get a couple of tups to sell you will get killing price as your a nobody in the tup breeding world.

For the amount of them sold, very few are ever heard of again. I know there's a lot of chat on here about over fed tips but some of these gimmers are just as heavily fed. I thinks it's actually a major welfare issue within pedigree breeding stuffing in lamb ewes knowing full well it's going to put them in a precarious state to rear lambs.
 
For the amount of them sold, very few are ever heard of again. I know there's a lot of chat on here about over fed tips but some of these gimmers are just as heavily fed. I thinks it's actually a major welfare issue within pedigree breeding stuffing in lamb ewes knowing full well it's going to put them in a precarious state to rear lambs.

I was always told to leave something in them for the next owner, encourage them to return for more. Plenty of others to take their place these days though.
 

Moors Lad

Member
Location
N Yorks
Hello. I’m seriously considering purchasing a few in lamb Texel ewes at upcoming winter sales. I have a budget of £1500-£2000. Would it be worth it?
Well, I`m not a Texel man but the vibes I see on here suggest something younger to get used to your place/system might be a better bet financially in the long term. Might be an idea to start small and see if you like it - there`s some good advice on this thread now!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top