[Corajoan]

Hi, we have a small holding in somerset. We breed ducks and geese, mainly rare breed(welsh harlequin, silver appleyard, magpie ducks west of England and Chinese geese) and have recently got sheep. After a lot of research we got a small breeding group of Ryelands and Shetlands. They are all shearlings but the ryeland ram is 5. He is a huge old boy! Any advise as to will he be successful as a tup as he doesn't seem very athletic? Our plan was to put a fresh ryeland ram on the Shetlands after their first lambs to produce fast growing lambs. We are also considering getting a few grey faces Dartmoor ewes with texel lambs at foot. Plan to bring the lambs on for meat and breed pure from them next year to in crease numbers. Anyone have any experience of them? Anyone know the best crossing sire to use?

[Herdygirl]

Hi. welcome to TAS 
We started of with GFD's and after 9 years have finally managed to get them out of the flock.  we found them to be friendly and easily managed but they take a lot of care in the dagging department.  The fleece is useless (known as carpet sheep as that was what it was used for). As the fleece is very long and dense they can be more prone to fly strike. The lambs remain small and chunky there is not much call for them in the butcher market.      I have one GFD/Ryeland cross left and she will be culled as I am very tired of spending an inordinate amount of time ensuring that her back end is clean. As the fleece is very long and dense they can be more prone to fly strike.She isn't that good a mother and neither were any of the others (we bought a small flock of 10).  They look lovely as lambs, probably the cutest around, but we came to realise why they have become a rare breed.  some on here love them and that's fine but I wouldn't have them given I'm afraid.
Shetlands are great little sheep, good fleece, naturally clean, good mums and full of character. A Ryeland cross is a good mix for the freezer.  I put mine to a Charollais ram and we have some cracking lambs from them.
 
 

[devonlady]

Hello from Devon

[Me]

GFDs have the worst feet I have encountered on any breed of sheep and sadly a very backwards society with no interest in improving the breed in terms of health and vigour - its all about showing (wool quality and black spot placement/ear size are key). There are some lovely people keeping GFDs but if you want a rare breed - they aren't actually that rare!

Ignore everything on the GFD site ref. hardiness - they are soft and need food thrown at them, they also struggle to rear twins, some say they cannot be lambed as ewe lambs?? (Disproven with help from Mr Charmoise!) basically they are a terrible sheep and need help to get through the day.

UNLESS you want a talking point sheep that is pretty to look at, slow, friendly and docile etc then they could be a good choice. There is a Facebook Group with some nice people on it and if you look that up you will get a glowing breed report no doubt.