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Author Topic: First sheep advice please  (Read 5863 times)

NewLifeOnTheFarm

  • Joined Jun 2016
First sheep advice please
« on: August 26, 2016, 04:11:23 pm »
Hi, i am just doing some research and planning in preparation for our first sheep. We have just moved onto a 17 acre farm, we have 3 ponies, 30 chickens, 4 ducks, and want to expand into sheep!

We are in Aberdeenshire area,  our sheep need to be able to lamb outside, we do have barns should there be any problems. We are looking for easy lambing, fairly docile breeds that will provide lamb for our and families freezer. So, what are peoples opinions on best sheep for our location and needs?

Many thanks

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2016, 05:00:04 pm »
Oh that's easy - I'd recommend the breed we keep, and so will everybody else!  ;D


What do you like the look of, and what do your neighbours keep?  :thumbsup:
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

waterbuffalofarmer

  • Joined Apr 2014
  • Mid Wales
  • Owner of 61 Mediterranean water buffaloes
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2016, 05:03:24 pm »
Well naturally everyone will be biased and suggest the breeds they keep themselves and are very fond of. Lets just say there are many breeds out there which could potentially suit your needs. The question I would like to put to you is.....  What sheep do you like?  There are quite a few breeds out there which would do very well for all the things which you have listed. I would recommend finding a breed that you like and speaking to the society, finding members near you, visiting them and walking around their farms and talking to them, really seeing the animals in their working enviroments. It might also be worthwhile to go to sheep sales, there are plenty coming round, and walking around them looking at different breeds. Try and speak to different breeders and really handle the animals. Then and only then will you be able to make a decision on a breed, if you have too many breeds that you like, try to narrow them down and find the most likeable qualities about them, IE resistance to certain things, easy lambers. I would recommend staying away from Beltex, charrolais, texel and suffolk, sorry guys. Get something easy to start with, zwartbles are a good breed to start with, as are Lleyn. There are also so many more easy care breeds of sheep out there. Another good place to start off would be to enroll in sheep keeping courses, [member=1]Dan[/member] and [member=13]Rosemary[/member]  run lambing courses, I think, that would be a good place to learn. I wish you all the best with this new adventure, it sounds really exciting and do keep us updated on how you get on?
All the best  :thumbsup:
WBF
the most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, loving concern.

Old Shep

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • North Yorkshire
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2016, 07:54:38 pm »
Look at neighbouring farms and see which breeds they have which lamb outside.  Are they predominantly North Country Cheviots around there?
Helen - (used to be just Shep).  Gordon Setters, Border Collies and chief lambing assistant to BigBennyShep.

NewLifeOnTheFarm

  • Joined Jun 2016
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2016, 09:34:43 am »
Thank you for your replies. Our neighbours keep NC cheviots and Texels on a commercial scale, and others hobbyists have Jacobs, Dwarfs and Soays. I had been drawn to Texel's so I'm interested why you advise against? I do like the look of lleyns. I'm also interested in peoples views on the need for foot trimming? In my research it seems very definitely no, or definitely yes, and I'd like to hear how people do in real life as it were!

Thanks

clydesdaleclopper

  • Joined Aug 2009
  • Aberdeenshire
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #5 on: August 27, 2016, 10:51:31 am »
Where in Aberdeenshire are you? If you are on the coast in the milder bits that is different than say where we are 750 feet up exposed and cold on a hillside.


One thing that I would bear in mind is will you be handling them on your own or will you have help. Do you need a smaller breed that are easier to do things with. Do you have small children, if so I would avoid sheep with horns. My vet has commented on how easy my flock are to handle compared with most that he sees but as my OH works away it's just me and the kids doing everything with them so they have to be tame.


The rare breed sale is on at Thainstone on 3rd September and it might be worth just going along to take a look and see what you like without any plans to buy anything.
Our holding has Anglo Nubian and British Toggenburg goats, Gotland sheep, Franconian Geese, Blue Swedish ducks, a whole load of mongrel hens and two semi-feral children.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: First sheep advice plea
« Reply #6 on: August 27, 2016, 11:03:04 am »
If you like Texels, they have the advantage that they're easy to sell, easy to get tups and so on.  The only real disadvantages are that you can get some difficult lambings, and they don't always have the best of feet.

You can avoid the worst of the lambing problems by tup choice and by culling any ewe that needed assistance.  In choosing a tup, personally I have found that head size isn't relevant, the most important measure is narrow shoulders, and you don't want too exaggerated a rear end.  Another approach is to use a different breed of tup - Beltex X Charollais gives great lambs and easier lambings, but won't necessarily improve feet.  A Shetland tup will give you easy lambings, great feet, ewe lambs that are good in your flock (and themselves give easier lambings and better feet) and fat lambs that are very saleable - but won't fetch quite as much as pure Texel would have, and will take a little longer to grow.  (However, you'll probably rear more of the Shetland X lambs than you would pure Texel... :-J). Another type of tup you could try is Cheviot; great feet, usually, lambs born small and grow steadily off grass.  You get fabulous fat lambs but a lot later than you would with pure Texel, so you'd need to be happy to keep some of them over winter - but then the prices are usually very good in spring.  And you could keep some of the nice ewe lambs in your flock - although you wouldn't tup them as hoggs.

I don't think there could be much doubt that of the breeds you mention, Lleyns would be the easiest for a beginner.  They rarely have lambing problems, their feet should be good on the whole, the fat lambs will sell just fine (though won't fetch what good Texel lambs would - but again, you'll probably rear more lambs per ewe with Lleyns.)

Some strains of Lleyn are very prone to triplets and even quads, so I'd try to avoid those strains, especially if you don't have lots of really good grass. (A Lleyn ewe can rear triplets on good grass, but any ewe would struggle with three lambs on land like we have!)

The thing about foot trimming is that the best approach is to breed sheep with good feet.  And if your sheep have less than great feet, it's incredibly easy to make things worse by trimming, even if you trim well, so the generic advice is to trim as little as possible.

And having said all of that, if your requirement is sheep that are easy to care for, docile, easy lambing, for your freezer - well, you'll go a very long way to improve on the Shetland.  Taste in a different league to Texels or other commercial breeds.  Need to be tamed, but if you buy from a hand-tame flock, you should have no trouble with that.  And they're so pretty! 

And you can take up spinning with with their gorgeous fleeces... :spin:

Soay can also be very tame, have superb feet and easy lambings, and taste wonderful.  They're even smaller than Shetlands though, and butchers generally charge per animal, so the smaller your sheep, the more per kilo the butchery costs.  (My butcher charges £24 per animal, including slaughter fee.  I get about 14 kgs off a well-grown Sheltand hogget, or a few kilos more if I give them two summers.  A Texel lamb would give you 20kgs or more at the end of one summer.)

And, so that you can calibrate my input, I've farmed full-time for 10 years; three with Swaledales, Mules and Texel and Beltex lambs out of Mules (some of which lambs we put in our own freezer) - about 800 lambs per year from all, on moorland; seven years with a 250-head commercial Texel-type flock, with some Mules, on disadvantaged upland ground, using Texel, Charollais, Beltex, Dutch Texel and Sheltand tups, and with my own flock of fleece sheep for the last 4 years, now at 35 head of mostly Shetland crosses.   All lambing outdoors in the north of England, apart from the 80-head Mule flock on the moorland, which we lambed indoors a little earlier.

We've had a batch of Cheviot store lambs to winter, and have had Cheviot X Texel ewes in the flock; we've tried Lleyns (and I worked on a farm previously which had a 70-head flock of Lleyns.).

Oh, and I've eaten Zwartbles and I must say it tasted very nearly as wonderful as Shetland, Manx or Castlemilk Moorit.  If you have a large family and want big joints...  (But from Womble's experience, plus other Zwartbles flocks I know, you will probably need to Footvax and cull for bad feet after footvaxing.)
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Big Light

  • Joined Aug 2011
    • Facebook
Re: First sheep advice plea
« Reply #7 on: August 27, 2016, 01:38:48 pm »
And having said all of that, if your requirement is sheep that are easy to care for, docile, easy lambing, for your freezer - well, you'll go a very long way to improve on the Shetland.  Taste in a different league to Texels or other commercial breeds.  Need to be tamed, but if you buy from a hand-tame flock, you should have no trouble with that.  And they're so pretty! 

Distance is only about 358 miles from Lerwick to Stornoway for some Hebrideans  :roflanim: :roflanim:

Marches Farmer

  • Joined Dec 2012
  • Herefordshire
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #8 on: August 27, 2016, 02:36:30 pm »
At one point we finished pigs and lambs for the Traditional Breeds Meat Marketing Scheme (set up by the RBST to provide an outlet for native breeds).  One of the senior chaps there swore that Portlands tasted best, followed by Southdowns. 

roddycm

  • Joined Jul 2013
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #9 on: August 27, 2016, 03:19:54 pm »
If you like texels but want something different, maybe... You could take a look at blue texels  - http://www.blue-texel-sheep.com

twizzel

  • Joined Apr 2012
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2016, 08:14:32 pm »
We have just bought our first sheep having reared 15 pet lambs every year for the past 5 years... We bought Lleyn X Texel shearlings and have kept a tame ewe lamb that has grown well, and plan to put them to a polled Dorset ram in late September hopefully for easy first time lambing in late February. This time of year is perfect for buying sheep, local markets have breeding sales ready for the tupping season in Autumn. We bought our ewes privately as getting to sales at this time of year for us is difficult (harvest in full swing) but have been very pleased with them :-) good luck !

NewLifeOnTheFarm

  • Joined Jun 2016
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2016, 09:56:08 am »
We are going to Thainstone next weekend to have a look. Its my sons 1st birthday, he loved going in May so i think he will be even more engaged now!

Having done some more reading, we have taken a great liking Shetlands and Ryelands. We are located nr Huntly,  nr Gartly Moor. We face down the valley so although only at 200m we expect to see some weather in the winter.

Do Ryelands lamb outside well?

Thanks.

Talana

  • Joined Mar 2014
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2016, 01:23:10 pm »
Ryelands or shetland would lamb outside. Any sheep will lamb outside the point being when do you want to lamb, A lot of outside lambing flocks in aberdeenshire lamb second half April/ May. We lamb in Mid march - mid April they go out to field thru the day and if weathers good and come into polytunnel at night for ease of management easier to check on thru the night. Lambed ewes come into a pen for a couple days whether lambs born in or out for us to make sure they are mothered up well then when sorted ringed and marked into a communal pen of 3 - 6 ewes and lambs for a day or 2 then out to fresh field on a nice day. This system works well for us as you can catch any problems early on.  If it's cold wet weather and ewe doesn't get them licked quick especially with twins the lambs can get chilled no matter what breed, then emergency warm up under lamp.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: First sheep advice please
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2016, 02:22:34 pm »
We lamb outside, in the Cumbrian uplands, lambing in March/April, just bringing in any that look vulnerable and if it's going to be horrible weather.   We jacket newborns if they're thin-skinned.  In general, bringing them in creates work, and can cause mothering and other issues which you wouldn't need to have solved if they'd lambed outdoors!

I have never assisted a single lambing in my fleece flock, which is predominantly Sheltand and other primitives, and crosses thereof, using either a Shetland tup or a Shetland cross.  We do get a few we need to help with the commercials. 

The pure Shetlands are born weatherproof, lively, and know where the milk bar is.  The mothers know what to do, even if they're lambing as hoggs.  Can't recommend Sheltands highly enough for first time sheep keepers, except for two things.  1.  You don't get to learn much about assisting lambings, nor get much if any experience helping mothers to bond with and feed their lambs. ;). 2.  The lambs are so agile, if you're wanting to castrate tup lambs, if you don't get them caught within the first 25-36 hours, you won't catch them in the field at all. ::). And the teeny tiny testicles are often too small to ring for the first few days, so then, if you're wanting to castrate, you have to get the mums and lambs penned towards the end of the first week to catch and ring the tup lambs.

I haven't had any pure Shetlands not know what do do with her lambs, or had any problem feeding.  I wouldn't lamb them as hoggs as a routine, I prefer them to have the extra year to grow - but the ones that have lambed as hoggs have all done a really good job.

None of my fleece flock have had any major issues, and very few minor issues - but of all the breeds and crosses I have, the pure Shetlands are the least work.  They don't have horns, so no problems with aggression. The lambs are well-covered and, provided there is good natural shelter, don't need to be brought in or be jacketed.  The mothers are milky, provided they've been fed appropriately, and excellent mothers. 

Our commercials we are pushing a lot harder, wanting - and getting - top quality commercial fat lambs.  So it's not surprising there is a higher incidence of issues with these sheep.  If the sheep are just for your own table, and to be nice to have around, then if you like the look of Shetlands, I would get them. 

I have no personal experience of Ryelands, so I'll let others talk about lambing them outdoors in Aberdeenshire, and so on.

« Last Edit: August 28, 2016, 02:24:25 pm by SallyintNorth »
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: First sheep advice plea
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2016, 04:16:00 pm »
from Womble's experience, plus other Zwartbles flocks I know, you will probably need to Footvax and cull for bad feet after footvaxing.


I know a number of other Zwartbles keepers now though Sally, several of whom also keep commercial flocks and either they're all lying to me, or our initial experience wasn't typical. Our sheep seemed to have very weak hooves, which then cracked and let in infection (this also affected the Manx and Shetlands). Since providing a zinc rich salt lick, their hooves are much stronger, so I think the problem was probably due to our land rather than the sheep. Unfortunately we blew the controlled experiment by footvaxing, so we'll probably never know exactly what was going on!!  :-\


The only thing I'd add is that we really struggled with our Manx Loaghtans because they were really wild. Now we've switched to Zwartbles, I can walk up to most of them in the field to catch them for inspection, drenching etc. This has made our flock so much easier to manage, not to mention saving us a fortune in dog food  :) . Friendliness (or otherwise) is a combination of both the breed and the flock they come from. So, think about how you're going to manage your new flock and how friendly you want them to be, then choose accordingly after having seen several different flocks from your chosen breed. I hope that's helpful!  :thumbsup: 
« Last Edit: August 28, 2016, 04:25:57 pm by Womble »
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

 

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