Another thing I don't think did the lleyns any favours is people trying to replace mules with them by breeding them bigger and completely ignoring everything else about them that would have gotten them culled on a farm that wasn't breeding for size. Showing has had a lot to do with that too
Theres a lot of crap being passed off as rams too. Eveeryone who keeps lleyn ewes has potentially half their crop of lambs as potential ram lambs too. So of course all of the best ones have to be sold for breeding even though they probably aren't that good
I thought you’d embraced the show ring these days?
Long, tall ewes had a tendency to end up dead here so the flock leant towards smaller, lighter, squat and boringly average looking ewes. This on wet areas in West Wales. They have gone now but I would do the same again on a bigger scale if the opportunity arose.
A lot has been said about Lleyns on here, which is usually accompanied with you have to get the right sort though, but what is the right sort?
Depends what you want them to do.
On a harder upland farm I'd pick a smaller woolier type that get fat easily, on a better upland farm or poorer lowland farm I'd pick a slightly (but not much) bigger blocky type (yes there could well be texel in them but it wouldn't bother me if there is a good sheep is a good sheep ) on a lowland farm probably pick one of the bigger types? I wouldn't know about how they do there but they were awful on my farm (all gone now) but the medium sized blocky ones do quite well here as did the small wooly types but they are mostly gone now bred up to the medium blocky type.
I don't think I'd put any on a hard hill (but have never tried either) there are better breeds than lleyn for that I would think. I've seen quite a few lleyn cross Welsh on hills though they make a decent hardy halfbred/Improved Welsh ewe.
Fair enough there's plenty of poor lleyns about shame that you ended up with them though. Even good ones won't suit everyone on every farm though they aren't a magic sheep by any means.we got some to 'try' about 3 years ago, admittedly not from the best source my late father got them from the local auction. 2 were were horrendous and had dead lambs first 2 years (could not lamb them and bad adopters) others ok, few have been good and had triplets a few years, good mothering other 2 are shite now and have already gone for kebabs this time. awful to shear aslo. i will be glad when there all gone to be honest.
At one point we were lambing about 600 of them I'd agree that the good sized blocky ones are the best of the breed, the long leggy ones struggle to keep enough flesh on them and the smaller wooly ones could be barstewards to lamb and have lambs that would struggle to get to enough weight
Does or did anyone find that they'd have 1 lamb one year and 3 lambs the next, the scanner man reckoned they were prone for it in the end it was one of the main reasons we got rid of them
That's not unique to lleyns though lots of breeds can scan high and it might suit some people. The first (and only) pure lleyns we bought in 2005 scanned at 235% and a lot had extra lambs when they actually lambed so it would have been higher than that but I dont know how high. I think they had been fed really hard for sale and gone straight in with a ram when they got here so they had been flushed in near perfect conditions. We kept them and they didn't scan that high the next year or again since. Only have one set of quads every other year maybe if that. No worse than anywhere running any other breed anywere else I wouldn't have thought. We don't keep quad ewe lambs though and only keep/buy twin rams that might have helped.I had someone buying rams the other day and we asked if he’d tried lleyns, he said he had 5 once, they produced 17 lambs, with 1 set of Quins and 1 set of quads.. they were sold before the ram got back into them.
I’ve heard horror stories of 220-240% lambing and having to buy machines to feed the spare lambs, powder reared lambs make no money on the best of years.
But if he had Lleyn only he could manage them properly to get nearer the % he wanted, it is a risk of running a mix of breedsI had someone buying rams the other day and we asked if he’d tried lleyns, he said he had 5 once, they produced 17 lambs, with 1 set of Quins and 1 set of quads.. they were sold before the ram got back into them.
I’ve heard horror stories of 220-240% lambing and having to buy machines to feed the spare lambs, powder reared lambs make no money on the best of years.