Which sheep breed

[primmiemoo]

A trip to a ag show would certainly tell you what can be achieved through heavy feeding & skilled trimming (handle a lot of Blue Texels for an example!).
A trip to Malvern would likely confuse even more, as every breed society claims their breed will tick every box, on every farm, on every system.....

Well yes, that goes without saying [whistle emoji] [grin], but, if the OP bears that in mind and looks for the sort of sheep he likes, he can narrow the search to the grass fed, performance bred strains within the preferred breed that work.

 

[Nithsdale]

You need a clear idea in your head of what you want from the sheep, and what you want to do, before you can decide on any breed.


Do you want to lamb early, or late?
Do you just want to sell fat lambs (or stores), or breed ewe lambs to sell?
Do you want to breed your own replacements, or just buy in gimmers every year?

You've already said you're on good grass.

The easiest way forward is buy whatever tup you want your ewes to be. Pick out of your own ewes the ones you like the best and put these to the new tup. Any ewe you don't like or don't want to breed ewe lambs from, either cull them any buy something better or use a markedly different breed of tup on them so you know these lambs easily, and rear them for fat...

Nobody can, or should, suggest a breed of ewe to you without first you being able to answer the above questions and understanding what you want your flock to do

 

[Guiggs]

As said above, as in most things in life in order to work out what to do you need a clearly defined goal so for example if you want a closed flock and to sell fat lambs you will have to decide on what breed or cross to run that suits your ground, environment, system etc and then a tup to breed your fat lambs and or your replacements...
The other thing to bear in mind is not to get bogged down with the path you take or the end goal, you have to be a little flexible, if you realise something isn't working or the goal is unattainable then change things until you start making the progress you desire.
If you set a target of where you want to be in a given amount of time then expect it to take a fair amount longer.

 

[spin cycle]

i love the term 'harlequin' to describe a flock @primmiemoo ......describes my lot perfectly.......can get you down sometimes......mind you i take the view that while they arn't limping or aborting better the 'devil you know'

 

[sticky]

My shout is, west wales, good grazing, Welsh mules and a Charolais ram. Easy to get hold of replacements, lamb easy and the lambs will do the store or fat job.

 

[GAM]

A trip to a ag show would certainly tell you what can be achieved through heavy feeding & skilled trimming (handle a lot of Blue Texels for an example!).
A trip to Malvern would likely confuse even more, as every breed society claims their breed will tick every box, on every farm, on every system.....

That sounds like a good idea.