Thinking of changing to shedding sheep. Change my mind.

[Woolless]

Doesn’t @Woolless have a splash of peeling texel in his shedders. Apologies if you don’t !

Quite correct. The best of the first crosses are excellent sheep and I've sold and used a good few of that type of tup myself. Brings in myomax gene and some hybrid vigour with minimal wool.

I think 1/4 or 3/8 Texel would be ideal in a shedding ewe, given proper selection. A little more muscle, shape and dare I say acceptability but retaining the 'easy care' aspects.

@Tim W and his mates do a good job with their Exlanas but it bears repeating that there are a few recording Easycare breeders, myself and @Johngee included. Have a look at www.maternalsheep.co.uk.

 

[Green farmer]

Actually a shedder with texel blood would give stock a quiet temperment. Look at what it brought to a hilltex. quiet sheep and never seen one jump a fence

 

[DanM]

That's the thing. My own ewes now can pass as texel crosses and so do the lambs. They sell well live no one can tell the difference. As good as the shedders are they look a bit plain confirmation wise. I know it doesn't matter really but they still need to look right if you want to sell them live as stupid as that sounds. I don't want to put a plainer ram on than what I already have. The peeler texel crosses look like a good halfway house.

Edit before posting: no disrespect to any of the shedder breeders I know they would hang up exactly the same as a lleyn. But there is still that prejudice against them when selling live for some reason.

Exlana sired lamb out of Exlana x Cheviot ewe. If your live market penalises long tails, you can still dock - draws less attention then

 

[Sheep92]

Quite correct. The best of the first crosses are excellent sheep and I've sold and used a good few of that type of tup myself. Brings in myomax gene and some hybrid vigour with minimal wool.

I think 1/4 or 3/8 Texel would be ideal in a shedding ewe, given proper selection. A little more muscle, shape and dare I say acceptability but retaining the 'easy care' aspects.

@Tim W and his mates do a good job with their Exlanas but it bears repeating that there are a few recording Easycare breeders, myself and @Johngee included. Have a look at www.maternalsheep.co.uk.

Definitely the best cross with the easycare is the texel, I have a few texel belclare cross easycare and they're lovely sheep to work with

 

[hendrebc]

View attachment 882590
Exlana sired lamb out of Exlana x Cheviot ewe. If your live market penalises long tails, you can still dock - draws less attention then

?? very nice
When would that lamb start shedding do you think? The ram lamb I bought had shed completely when I bought him I think that was August some time.

 

[Bones]

As the title really. Almost certain I'm going to stop using lleyn rams to breed replacements and getting some exlana or easycare rams instead of them. Lleyns aren't doing anything wrong but I tried an easycare X exlana ram in 2018 and some of his daughters have lambed this year. They didn't do anything the lleyns didn't do but obviously they would have no wool if I crossed them again. So I think I'm going to go for it. Unless you can change my mind?

Might be as well buying ewe lambs of a good reliable person every year, im trying to breed my own ewe lambs , and walking through the fields this evening I can a see a whole lot more ram lambs and I mean a lot more , than ewe lambs

 

[Joe]

Anyone lambing large numbers of Exlana/Easycare flocks outside? Also what’s the scanning % for each breed does anyone know?

 

[hendrebc]

Might be as well buying ewe lambs of a good reliable person every year, im trying to breed my own ewe lambs , and walking through the fields this evening I can a see a whole lot more ram lambs and I mean a lot more , than ewe lambs

That's frustrating. No reason you can't do both though breed some and buy some. I think breeding replacement ewe lambs is a bit too important to let someone else do it all and end up with their second class though. As reliable as they may be they will always keep the best for themselves. At least when you breed your own you know exactly what they are.

 

[yellowbelly]

whole lot more ram lambs and I mean a lot more , than ewe lambs

Isn't that always the case?
Statistically it should be half and half, but it never seems to be here

 

[Bones]

That's frustrating. No reason you can't do both though breed some and buy some. I think breeding replacement ewe lambs is a bit too important to let someone else do it all and end up with their second class though. As reliable as they may be they will always keep the best for themselves. At least when you breed your own you know exactly what they are.

No doubt , and that's the reason why I'm breeding my own ,but with buying in ewe lambs ,at least your doing away with having to sell ram lambs , which can be a bit of a bugger,

 

[DanM]

?? very nice
When would that lamb start shedding do you think? The ram lamb I bought had shed completely when I bought him I think that was August some time.

Depends on weather and body condition; some shed late summer, some seem to shed regularly and had some not shed till following spring.

 

[hendrebc]

I've just thought of something else. How do you catch them with no wool to hang onto ?

 

[neilo]

I've just thought of something else. How do you catch them with no wool to hang onto ?

A Supercrook and train to run fast...... very fast??

 

[Johngee]

I've just thought of something else. How do you catch them with no wool to hang onto ?

There’s no reason to catch them though![emoji6]

 

[Bones]

That's frustrating. No reason you can't do both though breed some and buy some. I think breeding replacement ewe lambs is a bit too important to let someone else do it all and end up with their second class though. As reliable as they may be they will always keep the best for themselves. At least when you breed your own you know exactly what they are.

can some Rams be more prone to throwing more of one sex over the other, wondering if that's the reason he was for sale, it was an aged Ram, The man I bought him of does a lot of recording,

 

[Gulli]

I've just thought of something else. How do you catch them with no wool to hang onto ?

Catch them by the head or leg

Or clutch at thin air as you fall face first into the ground
Having no wool doesn't make it anymore difficult!
Terminal sire on them and they look no different in the live ring

 

[Moors Lad]

Exlana website seems a bit short on detail - what sort of lambing percentage ? Typical weight of a ewe ? Will they stand cold weather as in "up North" ? Do the ewes last?

 

[Tim W]

Exlana website seems a bit short on detail - what sort of lambing percentage ? Typical weight of a ewe ? Will they stand cold weather as in "up North" ? Do the ewes last?

Sorry , the website is a bit of a work in progress (& it's my progress which is fairly slow when it comes to all things technical)
Lambing %age---similar to a Lleyn
Ewe weight? ----60/65kg (mine are a bit smaller as i run them on poor ground ---as a breeder should)
You want larger sheep we can provide rams with high mature weight EBVs
You want high lambing %age we can provide rams with high prolificacy EBVs or more importantly high lamb survival EBVs

Cold weather? ---Shedding sheep cope with weather as well as if not better than unnaturally/excessively woolly sheep , they are on farms from Romney marsh to Inverness, far west Wales to Lincolnshire, they are in Cumbria & the Borders---sea level to 7000ft in the Alps
They run on outdoor systems in Canada ---shedding sheep (a sheep's natural state) are everywhere in the world. Something like 14% of the world sheep population were shedders at the last world sheep cencus

 

[Moors Lad]

Good helpful response. Quick too! Thank you.

 

[NZDan]

I've just thought of something else. How do you catch them with no wool to hang onto ?

Same way you catch a Mule, but you don't finish up with just handfulls of wool on your first try.............