Zwartbles

[Kelso690]

Have some Zwartble x Texel ewes that I can't really fault, good mothers, plenty milk and with Texel put over them the 3/4 lambs which are black or white are cracking lambs. But we put Zwartble tup over some last year and kept some of the gimmers and they've been a pain in the arse. Drop a tiny little lamb in middle of shed that just lies there, ignore it and bugger off to stuff face with hay. Most had no milk at all, only one that lost its lamb fostered another and is doing well. Am wondering whether to give them another chance because they're gimmers.

 

[andybk]

A good zwartbles is brilliant , a crap one is worse than usless , We brought them in , in the beginning as we felt they would do a similar commercial job to the bfl but hardier , which they will albeit with black wool easy lambing good mothers with plenty of milk , The problem now is a society thats obsessed perfectly marked sheep with no white spots on the neck (its part of the breed in holland up to the size of the fist ) even though their perfectly marked sheep are poor commercial types (holstines)under commercial conditions or have structural faults , Huge barrel shaped sheep fed as pets in the paddock ,By breeding for colour only they have lost a lot of genetic diversity
There is no forward momentum amongst mainly hobby owners , other than lessons on trimming or showing .
Have to say im very disappointed with how they have fd up a potentially good breed

 

[Ysgythan]

A lot will come from small flocks where the females are kept as replacements for the sole reason they don't have nuts. No matter that their mother had terrible feet, poor mothering ability etc.

Prejudice - all small flocks bad - not true - some big flocks are bad too

 

[Ysgythan]

A good zwartbles is brilliant , a crap one is worse than usless , We brought them in , in the beginning as we felt they would do a similar commercial job to the bfl but hardier , which they will albeit with black wool easy lambing good mothers with plenty of milk , The problem now is a society thats obsessed perfectly marked sheep with no white spots on the neck (its part of the breed in holland up to the size of the fist ) even though their perfectly marked sheep are poor commercial types (holstines)under commercial conditions or have structural faults , Huge barrel shaped sheep fed as pets in the paddock ,By breeding for colour only they have lost a lot of genetic diversity
There is no forward momentum amongst mainly hobby owners , other than lessons on trimming or showing .
Have to say im very disappointed with how they have fd up a potentially good breed

We've had a few as ET recipients and they were both ends of the spectrum. Thought that was because we had low numbers. Reading this now I'm not so sure.

The best ewe we had was perfectly marked, so not sure on that theory either.

Would have been tempted with a few more but they are very thin skinned and a couple of black fleeces shearing time are a pain.

Also we like to keep Texel x ewe lambs out of the recipients as they're born MV accredited. As the Zwartble is basically a colour throwback from crossing Texels and Milksheep only bred "pure" relatively recently (which accounts for inconsistency) we don't know what the Texel x ewe lamb would be, whereas we've had hundreds of Texel x Welsh Mules and know where we stand.

 

[Bill dog]

They are awful damn things, I bought a ewe and a tup lamb for the kids. Ewe didn't hold in 2 years, looked like a hat rack and didn't like not being fed out a bucket! The tup lamb got turned into a teaser, and can barely do that, always looking pitifully at me in the hope I'll throw him a mars bar or 2 ! But girl next door has 6 on her small holding and loves them . She does however put them in a shed all winter, feeds them basically ad lib, and I'm sure she would have them in the house if her hubby would allow! Horses for courses !

 

[Kelso690]

Our good ones albeit are Zwartble x tex and some nearly pures only come in a week before lambing and have been fed next to nowt all winter. Some of them lambed as gimmers last year and managed fine, some reared twins. This years gimmers that were kept have been f'ing hopeless but I had used a different Zwartble tup lamb on them, will give them z chance next year with different tup