- Location
- Perthshire, Scotland
Harnessed up ready to go
That's my boy!!
Tupping 2017
- Thread starter trewern
- Start date
Harnessed up ready to go
That's my boy!!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Where do you get those ram harnesses? We had about 20 as freebies with liquid feed from FSL Bells (bought out by Brinicombes nearly 20 years ago I should think). They last well and the wide straps are great, but they do eventually die and I unwrapped my last new one last year. I've never been able to find any to buy.
- Location
- Perthshire, Scotland
I think those red harnesses were bought in a bucket of sheep "stuff" at a farm sale a few years ago. I only have 4 of them
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I did see some Agrihealth ones that looked similar (but blue) on a show stand on the summer.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Likely came from the same source as mine then...
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Is the colour all important ?
€20 doesn't seem too bad for them. Although, I've no idea what a harness costs... I've never checked the price when I buy them
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Is the colour all important ?
€20 doesn't seem too bad for them. Although, I've no idea what a harness costs... I've never checked the price when I buy them
Colour doesn’t bother me, I was just wondering if they were actually the same when I saw them.
I picked up an extra Mating Mark/TopStock one from Wynnstay the other week for a tenner, iirc.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Colour doesn’t bother me, I was just wondering if they were actually the same when I saw them.
I picked up an extra Mating Mark/TopStock one from Wynnstay the other week for a tenner, iirc.
But surely for bonny heads you need bonny harnesses which set the tup off making him look even better
If they looked the same, and built as well, you should've got them if your struggling to find them again. I'm confused why I couldn't find the ones on the link on their UK site, you'd think they'd sell them here
It's the Net-Tex harnesses I use, with the thick padded straps. But I like the broader straps of the red ones above
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
But surely for bonny heads you need bonny harnesses which set the tup off making him look even better
If they looked the same, and built as well, you should've got them if your struggling to find them again. I'm confused why I couldn't find the ones on the link on their UK site, you'd think they'd sell them here
It's the Net-Tex harnesses I use, with the thick padded straps. But I like the broader straps of the red ones above
I put them on the ‘I must look them up when I need some more harnesses’ list, but I don’t use many these days.
Being too tight to buy crayons at £1.50+
, everything goes out for 17 days with no crayon now, then a lower number of raddled tups are used to chase after. I’ve bought another couple of wee Beltex lambs this year to run with the hoggs, so need a diddy little harness for them. Only MatingMark one’s will go small enough to fit properly.
- Location
- Perthshire, Scotland
My boys have been out since Wednesday (4 days)
All beltex tups at approx 1:30. Ewes all ran with the 2 teasers for 3 weeks.
Roughly half the ewes are marked.
15/26 beltex
19/31 "good" texels
33/66 Cheviot mules
57/124 texels
All beltex tups at approx 1:30. Ewes all ran with the 2 teasers for 3 weeks.
Roughly half the ewes are marked.
15/26 beltex
19/31 "good" texels
33/66 Cheviot mules
57/124 texels
- Location
- West Wales
Update, the Exlana in with 102 Glamorgans which is the first time we've ever put a ram in by himself has served 68/102 ewes in 10 days, he's now been joined by 3 BFL ram lambs that mated a further 3 while we footbathed the ewes.
The 4 BFL with the 99 Glamorgans have served 69/99 in the exact same time.
First impressions of the Exlana ram is very good going by this and losing no condition so far!
The Rams are in with the main flock Ewe lambs now and 38/250 have been served between the 2 flocks so far in 5 days.
The 4 BFL with the 99 Glamorgans have served 69/99 in the exact same time.
First impressions of the Exlana ram is very good going by this and losing no condition so far!
The Rams are in with the main flock Ewe lambs now and 38/250 have been served between the 2 flocks so far in 5 days.
CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
I struggle a bit with the whole tupping numbers things . . . . .
Having spent a fair bit of time watching rams jump ewes (I know, I know. . . ), its not a huge amount of effort really, if the ram doesn't have to do much looking or chasing.
I mean realistically if the ewes are cycling, up for it and right there, what is it for a ram to tup 10 in a day? Not much effort tr amazing achievement really. . . . so if in for two weeks, over 100 should be entirely possible.
It probably has more to do with how well the ewes are cycling.
With our later tupping groups, tupped in December, it always amazes me what rams can do and how quickly. We put about ten rams in with 1500 ewe and they nailed all but 27, and most lamed in first 3-4 weeks. In the ewe lamb group, 2 charmoise managed to get about 400 in lamb between them. . . .
Having spent a fair bit of time watching rams jump ewes (I know, I know. . . ), its not a huge amount of effort really, if the ram doesn't have to do much looking or chasing.
I mean realistically if the ewes are cycling, up for it and right there, what is it for a ram to tup 10 in a day? Not much effort tr amazing achievement really. . . . so if in for two weeks, over 100 should be entirely possible.
It probably has more to do with how well the ewes are cycling.
With our later tupping groups, tupped in December, it always amazes me what rams can do and how quickly. We put about ten rams in with 1500 ewe and they nailed all but 27, and most lamed in first 3-4 weeks. In the ewe lamb group, 2 charmoise managed to get about 400 in lamb between them. . . .
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I was about to post the exact same thing.
Back in 1990, we decided to trial some of those new fangled ‘continental’ tups. We went out and bought 2 Rouge rams and 2 Charollais rams, a shearling and a ram lamb of each. We were running about 600 ewes at the time, but only had room to get about 300 indoors for lambing in March, so we were splitting the flock in half. We had this idea, being used to Suffolks
, that there was no way those rams would cover everything, so put each pair of rams out with 300, with the intention of banging them all together after 3 weeks, for the Suffolks to cover the half that hadn’t been tupped.Had a bit of a problem the following March, trying to squeeze everything in, and hardly had a black headed lamb at all. Needless to say, we hardly had a black headed lamb born on the place again......
- Location
- West Wales
@neilo @CopperBeech do you flush/teaser etc??
Copperbeach, we mark the ewes after 50-55% have been marked so we know that those will be lambing in the first 8-10days and the rest will be after. It's easier to check half of the farm every 2 hours than it would be to check the whole farm! We also stock the earlier growing/sheltered land with the first week of lambers and the later/windier fields with the later lambers.. everyone has different systems etc.
Copperbeach, we mark the ewes after 50-55% have been marked so we know that those will be lambing in the first 8-10days and the rest will be after. It's easier to check half of the farm every 2 hours than it would be to check the whole farm! We also stock the earlier growing/sheltered land with the first week of lambers and the later/windier fields with the later lambers.. everyone has different systems etc.
- Location
- Co. Down
Have a tup lamb lame on a hind foot when checking ewes this evening, will get a look at him tomorrow morning to see what the issue is but was just wondering will it do him any harm if I get a shot of painkiller off of the vets for him?
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I’ve always run teasers with each bunch before tupping, to make sure they’re cycling rather than get a particularly tight lambing. A 17 day lambing is fine by me, otherwise I’d sponge them.
March (pedigree) lambers have had the tups in for 17 days as of yesterday, and everything marked apart from 5 that I’m pretty sure are in lamb for December (the scanner said not
). They’ve gone into one bunch with one ram to chase now.In the April lambing mob, I will let the rams loose later in the week, but the ewes are testing fences looking for rams (2 found their way through to become March lambers), so would expect a similarly quick take. I won’t raddle for the first cycle of 17 days, then remove most of the rams and put a harness on them.
I will probably raddle the Beltex rams that are going in with the ewe lambs from the start, purely so I don’t need to scan anything unmarked.
My reasoning being that harness crayons are £1.50 and scanning unmarked ewe lambs costs 50p.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
It’ll do him more good than leaving him lame, and potentially with a temperature (that’s the bit that renders him infertile).