[beagh-suffolks]

as part of an assignment of mine, i took 5 sires of different breeds and put them to commercial ewes of all similar age all were in lamb with singles and all were tup lambs, all due round the same time..i also have them all fed on the same diet and thought i would share what i have gathered so far: all the ewes are Scotch mules and are 3 crop.
note:lambs were also scored on vigour...1 being straight up and suckling , 5 being needing assistance after 3 hours

birth weights(lambs are going to be weighted every 2 weeks up to weaning)
Ewe 1(suffolk)=5.9kg ...vigour; 2
Ewe 2(poll dorset)=3kg vigour; 1
Ewe 3(ile de france)=4.6kg vigour; 1
Ewe 4(texel)=5.2kg vigour; 2
Ewe 5(beltex)=3.4kg vigour; 2/3

2 week weight;
suffolk X= 13kg (7.1kg gain)
Poll dorset X=7kg (4kg gain)
ile de france X=9.5kg (4.9kg gain)
texel X=11.5kg (6.3kg gain)
beltex x=9kg (5.6kg gain)

[SallyintNorth]

Very interesting... could you also express the gained weight as a %age of birth weight?

And as you go on, as kg/week?  (Not sure how to do %age once you get to that point...  )

[Tim W]

There is now a new cross breed analysis being started by EBLEX using different sires of different breeds on commercial recorded flocks(2000 ewes I think) ---should produce some interesting data

It will not tell us that one breed is better than another breed but rather that a particular ram has a higher performance for a particular trait (regardless of breed type)

Your lambs are weighed at 2 weeks old & their weight gain I would suggest will mainly be down to the mothers milking ability and the birth weight? The terminal sire effect will be greater after 8 weeks ? (once lactation is beyond it's peak)

[Slimjim]

Well I think your small study is still interesting and thanks for sharing it.

[Ladygrey]

Very interesting, thankyou for sharing

I too will be doing a study this spring, although its with only two tup breeds, Charmoise (green tup) and Charolais (pink tup) put onto 34 welsh mules of the same age from the same place

I have split my welsh mules in half and put each group to a different tup, I will be recording and comparing the following

-birth weight
-lambing ease
-lamb vigour
-3 week weight
-8 week weight
-weaning weight
-dag scoring
-foot scoring
-fec count
-time to finish
-killing out %
-carcass grade

So loads of things, but I cant wait to start, its 7 weeks to go until lambing now, the ewes are marked with a different colour for each tup (pink or green) aswel as the ewes tag number being recorded for each tup, the lambs are tagged when weighed just after birth and each breed lamb will have the colour tag of the tup used (using pink and green tags)

So singles, twins, ram lambs and ewe lambs will all be in the study, hopefully it works out ok, not sure if my group of ewes has been big enough for any results but hopefully it will at least be interesting

[MarvinH]

LadyG - are you planning on swapping same two tups over next autumn?

[Ladygrey]

LadyG - are you planning on swapping same two tups over next autumn?

Swapping them over? do you mean trying two new breeds?

[nutterly_uts]

LadyG - are you planning on swapping same two tups over next autumn?

Swapping them over? do you mean trying two new breeds?

I think it means Tup A's ewes to Tup B and Tup B's ewes to Tup A

[Ladygrey]

Oh I see... thankyou 

Umm nope I wouldnt be doing that as there wouldnt be any point, thats the reason why I am using ewes of the same breed, age and size and from the same place in the comparison, if I swapped the tups around the data may be the same as the year before except for the fact that the ewes would be then 6 toothers at lambing rather than four toothers and that may change things such as ewe health and productivity... I think anyway 

[farmvet]

ewe1 120%   2 133%    3 106%     4 121%    5 164%     2wk weights as % of birth weight

interesting but 1 ewe per tup is not going to give you any valid statistics.

[MarvinH]

ladyg- re tups. I dont understand what your trying to acheive without any benchmarks.

[Ladygrey]

I am just trying to directly compare the offspring from the two different tup breeds, a little study just for interest sake, it may work and it may not work

I have data from last years lambs but cannot use that as a benchmark as it was from different ewe breeds.

Is there a different way I should do it? 

[DartmoorLiz]

I love this sort of research and very often the numbers are too small to be significant but the results are still valid in that if there is a profound difference between the groups then that's a guide to future practice and what works in each situation. 


I'm feeling inspired to do a similar study next year comparing lleyns with black faces.

[Marches Farmer]

I think such studies are interesting but really need to have exhaustive recording over many generations.  Also one tup from one breed for one group of ewes in one season is statistically stretching things a bit too far for generalisations about any particular terminal sire breed!

[Ladygrey]

I think such studies are interesting but really need to have exhaustive recording over many generations.  Also one tup from one breed for one group of ewes in one season is statistically stretching things a bit too far for generalisations about any particular terminal sire breed!

Yes I agree completely 

I am basically just doing it to see if the charmoise crosses suit m system better than the charollais crosses, I thought it would be interesting to see what results (if any) I could get which would be used purely for interest and not for anything else.

I could have just thrown both tups in to one group but then I could never say with 100% certainty which lambs were from which tup, I also wanted the charmoise to do the pure charmoise ewes (obviously) plus all of the ewe lambs and the charollais to do the sh*tlands

If I average the data out and there is a huge difference then maybe it can help me in future decisions