Thinking of getting a Charollais.........am I completely bonkers?.......

[spin cycle]

Guards!!! Take him away!!!

......i'd heard on here that charolais wern't milky enough for x bred maternal ewes....i've some ch x cheviots that are ok though

i'm talking for ewes in southern softie...arid east...indoor lambing use

 

[neilo]

are ppl using charolais as a maternal sire

I keep a few Ch x Highlanders from my twin group every time i’m A bit light in replacements. Every lambing time I regret it and swear never to do it again.........until weaning comes round again.
They have great lambs (3/4 Charollais) but are so far behind the Highlanders on maternal ability that they seem to cause all the problems. The premium on the (E grade) lambs doesn’t come anywhere near close enough to paying for that imo.
Their biggest problem though, is an inherent lack of lactation persistency, so they start of milking well for twins, then start to tail off from 3 weeks, just as everything else is hitting peak production.

Most pedigree breeders will, of course, tell you that theirs are fine, but I don’t know of many that aren’t Corning their ewes hard and have creep feeders out, both of which mask the problem enough that it won’t be bred out of the breed quickly.

Some lines are obviously better than others, but generally, they’re shite as ewes and far too prolific for their own abilities ime.

 

[andybk]

Guards!!! Take him away!!!

they are ok on poll dorsets

 

[neilo]

they are ok on poll dorsets

They are ‘ok’ on Highlanders too, but ‘ok’ is below what I want from a maternal flock these days. I want them to get on with it without me intervening, if at all possible.

 

[Bury the Trash]

they are ok on poll dorsets

Rouge were better for dual purpose.

 

[neilo]

Rouge were better.

Not ime. When we tried them they suffered from all the same problems, but the lamb# were harder to finish too. That experiment only lasted a few years....

 

[Bury the Trash]

Not ime. When we tried them they suffered from all the same problems, but the lamb# were harder to finish too. That experiment only lasted a few years....

Ime there was less fluff heads than char than with the rouge and added prolificacy negative was that the lambs that they ultimatly had were still pretty baldy at birth.

 

[M-J-G]

Rouge were better for dual purpose.

I found them to be.
A half Rouge was miles ahead of a half Charollais on maternal ability when I had them.

 

[Northeastfarmer]

......i'd heard on here that charolais wern't milky enough for x bred maternal ewes....i've some ch x cheviots that are ok though

i'm talking for ewes in southern softie...arid east...indoor lambing use

Char x beltex ewes....great mother’s ?

 

[neilo]

I found them to be.
A half Rouge was miles ahead of a half Charollais on maternal ability when I had them.

I found them both cr*p in that department. We tried both about 30 years ago and, when the Rouge's deficiencies as a terminal became clear, thought to use the Rouge rams as a sire of dams. My father also bought in several hundred (very smart) Rouge crossbreds from various sources at that time. As I said, the idea didn't last long, with the Charollais lambs (even from the relatively bald Charlies at the time) being considerably hardier at birth.

Obviously both will have changed somewhat in that time, not least as the Rouge had a little introduction from the other.

I'll admit that the Rouge x Welsh Mule and the Rouge X Scotch Halfbreds were very smart sheep visually though.

 

[Whitepeak]

Rouge were better for dual purpose.

We tried a rouge about 15/20yrs ago, think dad bought him out of Chelford market. They didn't last long here as the resulting progeny were completely bonkers and wouldn't flock together. Had some nice shapey lambs though.

 

[M-J-G]

I found them both cr*p in that department. We tried both about 30 years ago and, when the Rouge's deficiencies as a terminal became clear, thought to use the Rouge rams as a sire of dams. My father also bought in several hundred (very smart) Rouge crossbreds from various sources at that time. As I said, the idea didn't last long, with the Charollais lambs (even from the relatively bald Charlies at the time) being considerably hardier at birth.

Obviously both will have changed somewhat in that time, not least as the Rouge had a little introduction from the other.

I'll admit that the Rouge x Welsh Mule and the Rouge X Scotch Halfbreds were very smart sheep visually though.

Without looking back I would say it was about 25 years ago when I had them. Both were mainly coming off a Texel x ewe.
I found the Rouge and BDM lambs were better at surviving the weather than a Charollais, and both made better ewes.

Char lambs were easier fleshed but ironically the ewes were harder fleshing than a Rouge or BDM, and not because of them putting effort into their lambs.

I would have guessed a Char onto a Rouge wouldn't work out well. Even I didn't try that one, I never liked Gremlins.

 

[M-J-G]

Char x beltex ewes....great mother’s ?

@neilo get the Beltex onto them to inject some maternal traits.

 

[CharcoalWally]

@neilo get the Beltex onto them to inject some maternal traits.

Could a Beltex gimmer jump a hurdle though to get away from her lambs, then jump back in again when she changed her mind, like a Charollais gimmer could?

 

[neilo]

Could a Beltex gimmer jump a hurdle though to get away from her lambs, then jump back in again when she changed her mind, like a Charollais gimmer could?

Maybe, if it was a 6” hurdle.?