beltextexel
Member
- Location
- Scorton, North Yorkshire
Is that a blue tex at back, or has one of them just face planted into a muddy pulled??
Yes blue Tex stock tup we bought a couple of years ago. Don't keep any blue Tex ewes but thought we'd try one on the commercials.
We are not shearling ram specialists, but with the best will in the world you can't always sell every ram lamb as a lamb so we do end up with a couple some years to run around.
To be honest they are a pain, not enough to justify their own tack, we don't want them on the same place we tack the ewe lambs as we keep them free of the tup, and if you leave them out all winter they just graze in front of the ewes and lambs at a crucial time.
This year we have three, all have worked and have been run since with the two stock tups, one a lamb himself, on a reseeded ley. Last week we bought them in because they were getting on top if it. They are now on silage, with soaked sugar beet and coarse mix fed twice a day.
After lambing they'll go out on grass until shearing when we'll start them on the trough again. Innovis, @easyram1 and @neilo are the exceptions, not the rule. Men don't generally pay for hard done by tups. They wouldn't pay us anyway which is why we went over to do lambs in the mid 90s. We haven't got the power in the ground for lambs off a grass/forage only system and we haven't got the scope to run all rams around as shearlings as we'd have to keep less ewes.
I was interested to see on twitter a couple of years ago that the criteria for the "great from grass" sale was no hard feed for three months before, and "grass" included fodder crops.
I think the most important thing is not whether you feed or not, but that you're honest about it (especially how much and of what) so the buyer can make an informed choice.
We have ended up forgetting about the ram lamb job, the only way to get on if your selling lambs at a mart is to stuff them with feed, which isn't something I'm keen on. We had a cracking beltex tup lamb a couple of years ago that grew like stink and after weaning, we decided to sell him as a lamb and ended up putting him on an ad lib feeder but by the time we got to the sale, we realised he needed cake since the day he was born.
After that we moved lambing from Feb, keeping lambs inside for 3 weeks, to march and turning lambs out after a couple of days. They seem much healthier for it. We will feed the ewes after lambing if grass is short, which it is most years due to been properly stocked, and the lambs then spend the rest of the year on pp until the turnips as of now. Then go back on to pp from the middle of April approx through to sale time. We have usually fed our tups nearer sale time but are trying to move away from this and this year, will offer buyers the choice of grass fed or concentrate fed tups. Will be interesting to see what they go for. We are running approx 85 tup hoggs through the winter atm so feel the number does justify the keep they are on. They are at the opposite end of the field to 130 of their sisters so I'm hoping the electric fence is doing its job!