Who is going to kelso.

Ysgythan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ammanford
Really? Starchy cake is used in a completely different manner by a ruminant, which then essentially starves when it's expected to be able to live by grazing grass over tupping. Turnips etc are utilised in the rumen, like grass is, so much less of a transition needed.
It’s not all about the starch though is it. Brassicas and clover are high in oestrogen, just like cabbage.
 

hally

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cumbria
Really? Starchy cake is used in a completely different manner by a ruminant, which then essentially starves when it's expected to be able to live by grazing grass over tupping. Turnips etc are utilised in the rumen, like grass is, so much less of a transition needed.
I am not saying its ideal but sheep adapt to their diet given time.....if this was not the case large tup sales like Kelso would have ceased to exist decades ago. Farmers would not accept 100% failures from cake fed tups but realistically in my experience its only a minority
 

Stockwell

Member
I am not saying its ideal but sheep adapt to their diet given time.....if this was not the case large tup sales like Kelso would have ceased to exist decades ago. Farmers would not accept 100% failures from cake fed tups but realistically in my experience its only a minority
Don’t think it’ll be long until Kelso and Builth disappear to be honest. Builth entries down to 3800 this year, from 5000 two years ago.....doesn’t seem long ago there was 9000 tups there.
 

hally

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cumbria
Don’t think it’ll be long until Kelso and Builth disappear to be honest. Builth entries down to 3800 this year, from 5000 two years ago.....doesn’t seem long ago there was 9000 tups there.
You could be right, auctions are better set up for these big sales but there will always be a demand for tups. I am always in admiration of these breeders and the time and work that goes into turning out these tups.
There is no right or wrong in this job just differant ways of doing it. Seems to me there is alot of negativity against the beltex on here but nothing sells around here like them....so what do you do?
 

abitdaft

Member
Location
Scotland
You could take the top genetically bred sheep from the highest farm in the country thriving off fresh air and bracken, put her at 5 years old onto a new clover ley and see what happens? Horses for courses or sheep for what they were bred to do. Hill sheep should be exactly that, a Hill ewe should not be big ( Cheviot excluded given how they grow ), she should be thrifty with a tremendous skin producing a shapely lamb and just a wee bit wild. She should have that "look" to her that makes you notice her, a wee bit of flash that makes you proud that you bred her but what she never was bred to be was a park, inbye sheep.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I am not saying its ideal but sheep adapt to their diet given time.....if this was not the case large tup sales like Kelso would have ceased to exist decades ago. Farmers would not accept 100% failures from cake fed tups but realistically in my experience its only a minority

Do you not remember @Greythundercloudys ’ post on the Beltex thread a week of so ago? Ram lambs bought a year ago & all dead now, with a resignation that somehow that had to be accepted…

Crazy talk imo, and it shouldn’t be acceptable, whatever the breed.
 
not necessarily right because its an art picking a type of stock ram that will grow and do on even poor pasture , at the moment in the pedigree world its just buy the biggest with a bit of shape and feed company can make up for any deficiencies , its not just about forage feeding its about type . and at the moment the type that sells in kelso etc doesnt make the best fat lamb producer ie % offspring graded without creep . If everyone went forage it would still take decades .
I'm not convinced that it's as complicated as that.

Our sheep are forage reared but aren't selected from breeders who are forage only, yet their daughters keep condition and rear 2 lambs on just grass.

I know dozens of commercial flocks who buy from Kelso and their lambs will be 100% forage reared and their ewes will only get concentrate around lambing time, and their lambs will never see creep.

Even if you reinvent the wheel you still just have a wheel
 
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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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