My betterhalf and I had a great time at the Devon show on saturday (despite the rain) looking at stock ahead of our smallholding move.
Now, I should say, we have kept sheep before (up to 100 breeding ewes at one point) - and a mix of texels, welsh-halfbreds, herdwick, wendsleydale, and white face woodland.
We're properly soft on white-faced woodlands (and they're very very rare) so we'll be having a small flock of those.
as for our "other" breed, we'd suggested we wanted to find a native (and local preferred) breed that will provide tasty meat and will fatten on grass, giving at least a half decent carcass.
From looking at the pictures in the books we have, I was pretty set on the white-faced dartmoor. My other half putting forward a case for exmoor horns. Our small holding is deffo not in exposed moor country, and on viewing both those breeds at the show, we felt they were pretty small.
The big big surprised in the show were the Devon closewool and the Ryeland. I've never seen either up close, and was quite impressed. Devon closewool maintain the really strong forelegs no doubt passed down from their exmoor horn heritage, yet with a tall frame. Ryelands seem to have the most amazing shoulder structure, with a really really wide stance at the front. Very impressive.
So, does anyone on here have experience of these 2 breeds, and the pros/cons there might be? We're going to try and find some breeders of each who will sell us a half lamb carcass so that we can test, but in the mean time....
Thanks
Adam