zwartble x texel

[Howler]

Been looking into zwartbles as a possible breed to cross with texel rams on our farm. Has anyone crossed a pure zwartble with a texel ram to produce commercial fat lambs? Or would they do better by crossing a zwartble with anither breed, suffolk for example, and then putting to a texel??

 

[z.man]

have done so ourselves, and they produce a good quality texel/beltex lamb all depends on the type of zwartbles ewe you source some retain flesh better than others but they are very honest sheep that will work hard for you, seem to be becoming more popular as a maternal crossing ewe especially well suited to early-ish lamb production, know of a man that is regularly near the top of our local mart with zwar/tex lambs in june

• find us on facebook @ aquila zwartbles or speak to @andybk he's been in them from the start

 

[Jackson4]

Zwartables came in a little with breeders (mainly for the 'show' of there tight skins in the live mart) here but soon gone as any part of meat production. The ones i had were the worst fleshing sheep and hardest lambing sheep i ever seen.. they were almost like a holstien cow which is probably explained by there history of general purpose milking sheep.
Maybe do better earlier as they maybe would flesh better off cake than grass. The handful of x's i kept here will be gone next year as all of them have had feet problems and no flesh on. Maybe it was my breeder rather than the breed and i was unlucky.. didnt have many.
What breed of ewe do you have now?

 

[BELOWAVERAGE]

We've got zwartbles really good sheep, very prolific and very milky, last spring ewes averaged 250% hogs 220%. Never drawed a lamb, had a hog have triplets left them on for 2 weeks before taking one off, and that was only because it didn't seem right leaving 3 on a hog, not a lack of milk. I have seen texel x zwarb fat lambs and they were really good lambs, the only cross's we've had here was when the Kerry hill tup got in and they made £84 apiece at 11 weeks.

 

[Howler]

We currently run about 100 texel ewes and 100 welsh and Scottish mules, all put to texel tups.
Looking at the zwartbles to use as saw them at the royal welsh show and thought they could do as good as job as the mules. Plus on doing a bit of research they sound like good mothers and lambers, with a higher lambing percentage. We got 168% at scanning out of our mules, and 135% out of our texels. Just worried that they won't sell very well in market as not a conventional breed x. We're based near Hereford on a hill farm in the black mountains and looking to get more breeding ewes and just taken on some more land.

 

[andybk]

some had problems with early commercial ewes due to the fact shortages and high prices ment only the poorest made it down the line , these days more effort is put into correctness and feet issues ,do some homework find a good breeder , dont just pick up a big cheap flyer down the local mart , far to many within the breed are using massive show sheep that are very holstine like under normal commercial conditions , and flesh out with good feeding ,(no good ) the more moderate ewes naturally flesh easier but still milk well and are very similar to mules but hardier .
, zwartbles are excellent quiet mothers , very hardy , most are very milky , my advice is always use the smaller blocky best fleshed rams on them , growth is not an issue so you dont need size . texel / beltex cross is superb (have seen some excellent dorset / downland cross lambs as well ) , ideal outside lambing ewe , kill lambs off the mothers for best results .

 

[neilo]

some had problems with early commercial ewes due to the fact shortages and high prices ment only the poorest made it down the line , these days more effort is put into correctness and feet issues ,do some homework find a good breeder , dont just pick up a big cheap flyer down the local mart , far to many within the breed are using massive show sheep that are very holstine like under normal commercial conditions , and flesh out with good feeding ,(no good ) the more moderate ewes naturally flesh easier but still milk well and are very similar to mules but hardier .
, zwartbles are excellent quiet mothers , very hardy , most are very milky , my advice is always use the smaller blocky best fleshed rams on them , growth is not an issue so you dont need size . texel / beltex cross is superb (have seen some excellent dorset / downland cross lambs as well ) , ideal outside lambing ewe , kill lambs off the mothers for best results .

Suggesting the use a massive ewes and small rams will be giving @Global ovine a heart attack.

@Howler , I'd suggest you take a trip to Hereford market and see what any Zwartble cross lambs make.

 

[andybk]

and another point ,zwartbles meat is very venison like , and a core band of local butchers actually pay a premium for well finished lambs , after feedback from their customers ,

 

[andybk]

Suggesting the use a massive ewes and small rams will be giving @Global ovine a heart attack.

@Howler , I'd suggest you take a trip to Hereford market and see what any Zwartble cross lambs make.

then maybe take a trip to sedgemore and see what properly finished lambs make there lots of hobby flocks dumping poor finished lambs is not good , with the right attitude and knowing you have to get lambs away quickly off mothers milk is important

thats the point i was trying to make , a good zwartbles ewe only needs to be mule size , there are far to many extreem types being used amongst breeders leading to very poor finishers.basically a zwartbles is a hardy easy lambing , milk machine the shape comes from the ram and the smaller / extreem shaped the better .

 

[z.man]

don't look to bad to me, and these are pure wether lambs 12 weeks old granted they all wont be like this

 

[Romney SE]

Only got two, crossed them with a charollais. The resulting lambs were a good 10 kgs heavier then any other lambs on the farm! Only down side is one of the ewes struggles to both maintain and regain condition.

 

[Howler]

Thanks for all the input. I will be getting a few this year ready to put to our rams and see if they are going to be viable.

 

[Jackson4]

Thanks for all the input. I will be getting a few this year ready to put to our rams and see if they are going to be viable.

Best way is try a few and find out for yourself. My advice is pick something that you've put your hand over its back and checked its got some flesh on.. One daughter I kept is a shearling this year and is in with my quads, a few bad feet and a pneumonia girl getting a lot more cake to put flesh on.