The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Primitive Sheep => Topic started by: Coximus on May 01, 2015, 11:11:26 pm
-
Hey all,
Just looking for some input into my breeding strat going forwards ;
Ive decided to concentrate on building up my flock of Hebs over the next 2-3 years to 60-100, with some put to terminal sires for lambs, but as I've found hebs sell reasonablly well into the ring / hook I will only do a few of them to sires each year.
otherwise I want to develop a breeding strategy to keep them pretty diverse genetically - and also interesting (I like having a mix, got a few 5 & 6 horned ewes, one topknot and only 1 "conventional" two horned lady - and all are excellent sheep, good feet, mouths and mothers.
My idea is to create 3-4 family groups of 10-20 ewes - and work on the strategy that each group breeds with a ram from a different group each year - with 1-4 ewe lambs retained each year as replacements in each group. - I would group the family 1-2-3-4 etc and always breed with a ram from the previous group (may sometimes run 1 good ram with one group one year, another the next) so for example group two always goes to a 1 ram, 3 to a 2 and so on.
I could then, as required Buy in an external ram, to cover 1 family as needed, and this would introduce new bloodlines over time which would cascade through the familys. As each year 2-3 new ewes enter each family, with different blood to many of the others this should create plenty of diveristy over the flock and within groups.
has anyone done anything similar, and are their any problems with my plan!?
-
No but I love the strategy! Where are you as we are also planning something similar .
-
Hi there that sounds complicated but I think it will work. We also had Hebs and are increasing our flock but very concious of good blood stock / lines and have just produced 2 very beautiful 4 horned boys that we intend to keep as Rams. We also have access to other proven Heb rams so if you need any in the future just shout x
-
Hi we are doing something similar too we have hebrideans a mix of genetics some cracking 2horns sheep some 4 horn one top knot one scurred we bought from different sources so we can use our own tups by moving things around occasionally bringing outside blood. We sell meat but are limited on what we can take through winter so planning to expand slightly using terminal sires and selling fat /stores before the back end. If you are interested we have a registered 5 horn tup who we have used the last couple of years who will be surplus to requirements (top horns have 2 fused but free at end) - can send genetics if its any use
-
Maybe we heb breeders could start a heb thread for all things heb related !!!
-
Im based in North Yorkshire near harrogate So Red, I would be interested - Ive already got a ram swap / loan on the cards for this year, but Id be interested in more, as Diversity is my key at the moment - so Would be happy to start with familys as small as 4-6 ewes to each ram. Where in North Yorks are you baseD?
-
Coximus ,I'm in Harrogate next Saturday to pick up a kune kune boar ,could I pay you a flying visit ?
-
Possibly - My sheep are currently in with a comercial mule flock while my land gets re-fenced and the drainage sorted - what time abouts as I work saturdays usually (also are you coming down from scotland?)
-
I'm in Yorkshire Fri afternoon / evening so could also do Fri eve , then picking up a new billy and then a new boar so as for timings , Fri eve would be better for me if I'm honest ! If your not available don't fret mate I know we all have to work to feed the buggers !
-
True, Ill post up here, Im a gardener by day trade so pretty beholden to the weather - cant really commit more than a day or two in advance!
-
Oh it's great to hear that you folks are keen to keep plenty of diversity in your flocks :thumbsup:. Is that genetic diversity only, or phenotypic too (what they look like as opposed to what their genes say).
Any of you who have visited our website (in need of updating) will know that we concentrate on maintaining a line of the ancient type of Hebridean - multi-horned or topknotted/polled/scurred, a variety of fleece shades, a variety of fleece types, wider faces, longlived and so on - all within the breed description, but not popular in the showring. We sell only privately direct from the farm.
As we are both a bit decrepit, we have been cutting back our Heb numbers, but we get enough lambs each year to supply a couple of folk with small starter flocks. We hope to keep going as long as possible, but we are aware of the need to raise interest in the ancient type of Hebridean, so there are others to help maintain this original type of the breed. One needs to be immune to the opinions of others, as those who show can be very scatheing about the ancient, 'unimproved' type of Hebridean.
For us, one of the keys to genetic diversity is to use plenty of unrelated tups, from unusual bloodlines, rather than just one from a 'popular' bloodline ie show winners. If you look through the flock book, you will see which breeders sell plenty of tups, which reduces the genetic diversity of the breed.
We find it difficult to source tups of the right type. We bought a very pretty 4 horned lamb at Melton Mowbray last year, and we are waiting to see how his offspring turn out. he's not of the ancient type though.
It would be good to have a Hebridean thread - so much to discuss, and the breed is always increasing in popularity.
-
Do you Heb folk want a Heb Board on here? We're planning to put on a Shetland Cattle board.
-
That sounds good Rosemary :thumbsup:
-
Please rosemary,and i promise to behave!
-
This is a very interesting thread not just for Heb breeders, but anyone trying to understand more about breeding primitives!
:thumbsup:
-
Yes our new Heb Board should really cover Soay, Boreray, Foula Shetlands, North Ronaldsay, maybe even Manx and Castlemilk, as well as Hebbies.
-
Fleecewife - Im going for genetic diversity, chasing phenotype reminds me of the texels -n how the breed soc chase a bigger chest and head, basically breeding for difficult lambing, vs looking at the new z texels which are the opposite - bred for ease! Makes me angry!
I dont give a damn about show ring appearance and have been critiqued for it in the past - but to me Hebs should be long lived (10+ years) touch, thrive on low or no inputs but pasture and hay and lamb without problems and have good feet, mouths and be good mothers - and be tough as iron in all weather.
Ive been to view too many heb flocks given food all year round, nuts in summer, lick blocks all the time, and what that does is allow week lines which should not be bred, to thrive, and weaken the breed - even more so as Ive seen this at 100ft above sea level - and this means soft sheep are thriving, while a heb with genes for hardiness may struggle under such a soft system, getting fat, scouring etc and as such not breed so well, so perversely many breeders are screwing the breed up imo, by giving their sheep an easy ride, and breeding for appearance - sadly making future hebs potentially a breed of old-world looking black sheep, adapted to live on year round supplements, adlib feeding and sheltered lambing -
I belive Hebs should be the opposite - Hardy little buggers, good mothers, thrive on grass alone (hay in bad weather), live out all year, lamb easily, good feet, good mouths and generally be a strong and healthy breed - compared to so many of the soft molly-coddled show-ring flocks which over time are breeding narrow lines for appearance and thus loosing the attributes that count. (I have brought from breeders like this who pride themselves on how good pedigree they are - and these ewes melt without inputs, struggle, and got twin lamb, then bad feet, repeatedly on all from the same set - Obviously WEAK genetics, but perfect appearance!
Beauty is a) in the eye of the beholder, b) only skin deep
-
I agree with FW
www.thelintmill.co.uk (http://www.thelintmill.co.uk)
-
Coximus , where do you get your ideas ??? Lol btw i totally agree !!!
-
Ran a five family system for many years works well , you need to really be hard at culling to achieve your goals ( in my case anything not good enough came out of the recorded flock and were crossed ) Be care full buying in the odd new ram as they may not click with your ewes and can set your breeding back . You will probably find that you will keep more ewe lambs as genetically they should be an improvement .
-
Yes our new Heb Board should really cover Soay, Boreray, Foula Shetlands, North Ronaldsay, maybe even Manx and Castlemilk, as well as Hebbies.
So for Primitive sheep breeds?
-
So for Primitive sheep breeds?
yes please! :thumbsup:
-
Maybe "Hebrideans and other Primitive sheep"?
-
Done. Will move the two current threads to the board shortly. Feel free to bring these to the attention of folk that might be interested :thumbsup:
-
Would straws be a good idea .so you have the seamon in one place .Its big in scotland So the best ram seamon could be used on lots of projects
-
That's the opposite of achieving genetic diversity. I'm aware that is something done for breeds with large numbers of sheep produced commercially, where there is an ideal, and using the same or related tups will produce fields of near identical lambs.
What we need with Primitive breeds is to use as many different tups as possible, on small numbers of ewes, so the genetic base is as wide as can be.
It is a strategy which can work over time, though, and this has been done to a small extent by the RBST, which funded the collection or rare breed semen a few years back, after F&M. We contributed 4 tups, and their semen is now held by the RBST for use after the animal itself is long dead. Ideally every tup ever used for breeding should have semen stored, and that should be available for anyone to use. In practice I think very few tups of any breed were used, simply because of cost and difficulty of getting to collection centres. Oh and the tups weren't too impressed with having to service a captive mule ewe without even an introduction :roflanim: or with being expected to perform in February :o
I'm not sure how much the stored semen has been used yet, as we have plenty of tups available within the breed in general, although not amongst multihorns.
-
Straws would be a terrible idea and make the very problem im trying to achieve so much worse!!!!!
BReeding from just the top conforming few rams is what wrecks a breed as the gene pool is narrowed so badly! I want more blood diversity not less.
-
Could we even expand this thread to a multhorned Ram dating agency?
Id love to loan my multhorned Ram for another multi-horned ram and get some new blood in that way?
-
I guess its not the straws that are the bad idea its the using one tup to cover everything - our lambs this year are from 3 different tups over a small flock and they had been covered by others behind them we also lent a different tup lamb out aswell - however not every one can afford or have the space to keep over half a dozen tups and tup lambs through winter. If you could use the straws of a number of tups on your own flock that would'nt be as bad but you would need loads to choose from and as FW says the logictics of it probably don't make sense especially when decent tups in the real world aren't that expensive.
-
Ideally every tup ever used for breeding should have semen stored, and that should be available for anyone to use. In practice I think very few tups of any breed were used, simply because of cost and difficulty of getting to collection centres. Oh and the tups weren't too impressed with having to service a captive mule ewe without even an introduction :roflanim: or with being expected to perform in February :o
From what I understand collecting semen in this way is quite a specialised process and not ideally suited to primtives that aren't always used to being handled. Has anyone looked at alternative ways of collecting it?
-
Geneped analysis (breed analysis) is a very important conservation tool; historical data of a breed and current pedigree registration along with a number of calculations produces a comprehensive picture of the genetic makeup of the past and current day breed population. This information allows RBST to advise more effectively on conservation breeding projects; it also enables us to highlight any males that are being under used in a population and identifies those which are the least related to other males. This information also assists RBST when collecting for the gene bank; ensuring semen is collected from animals across the whole genetic range found within a breed. This is the RBST take on it
A typical analysis costs £1,000 per breed and we have at least two breeds waiting for this work to be done.
-
That would be great for the Heb Soc, if we had access to the scheme or could afford to do it ourselves (it's a very small society), and had people interested enough to do the work. I don't know if such an idea is in train as part of Committee business yet. I don't think we have access to the scheme as organised by the RBST because Hebs are now classed as only a traditional breed, not in any danger - although those of us who keep multihorned Hebs feel they qualify as a very rare breed within the larger flock, and they are indeed endangered.
I would love to know if I am wrong here.
I was thinking that you just meant a free for all of straws, in which case the same tups would be used again and again, which would narrow down the genetic diversity of the national flock. 'As Big Light says: decent tups in the real world aren't that expensive'
When semen was collected following F&M, it was a very haphazard, disorganised process, possibly put together in a rush. It depended on people being willing to transport their tups to a collection centre - there was ONE in Scotland - and leave them there for a month (I think it was a month). During that time they were kept in single stalls surrounded by stone walls, although they could hear their chums next door. They had no access to grass or fresh air, so if Primitives in these circumstances became depressed and couldn't be bothered to perform, it's hardly surprising. I think the semen collection business has been commercialised now, but may still not suit our breed.
Kanisha - how about a condom on the tups (it would probably need to be glued on :o) so the semen could be collected during the normal tupping process? I'm sure someone could improve on the basic idea - it would make it infinitely cheaper, more likely to succeed, give fresh viable sperm, and not disrupt one's own tupping programme.
-
Fleecewife have seen a method of sperm retrieval which is more surgical and doesn't involve the rams active participation, I wondered if, as you say the conditions for semen collection seem quite barbaric :-( there were any real alternatives.
-
Oh yes there's a rectal probe thing they use on stud horses in the US (according to CSI :roflanim:) and on zoo animals such as Gorillas. Knowing what tups get up to in the privacy of their own field, they probably wouldn't even notice.
-
My names Colin ,the only gay heb in the feild !!! Honest guv !!!
-
Wasn't thinking along those lines but the mind boggles !! :o :sheep: :sheep:
-
reminds me of an amusing site once, a 4-horned Heb, a 3 Texels all lined up against a fence, I walked into the field and My Ram just gave me a nonchalant glance and continued doing what he was doing, quite literally.
-
I don't mean to be rude, and I quite like them, but i'm intrigued by the choice of a Heb as a maternal ewe in a commercial flock?
Do they give lambs that grow fast enough and to a size to give a worthwhile commercial output? And what is their prolificacy?
I can see that they would have all of the needed maternal and hardiness qualities, but just wondered what it was exactly that made you pick them to run on a commercial scale out of all of the options?
-
We have crossed our ram with commercial (texel mules) ewes and had stonking lambs, who we were offered £150 a head for as breeding ewe lambs at 7 months old.
Others have covered with a Texel for prime lambs that go away on a par with other commercial crosses, and I've seen long wool sires used to create a very acceptable mule type for further crossing.
Hebridean ewes require less feed, less assistance at lambing, less labour in terms of foot trimming etc because of all this hardiness, so they are a very commercial option.
-
Plus start up costs are less expensive compared with commercial sheep - so you buy a ewe for say £50 or perhaps less compared to £80 or £100. It quickly multiplies if you are trying to start a flock up
-
porterlauren;
I get between 150-170% lambing . Hoggets typically are about average in market.
X-bred lambs conform well but tend to be a tad lean and smaller, to sell to export trade in the ring -
selling to the pure bred plenty of buyers like rare breed meat - they sell it at a 50% premium or more to the end customer, so are happy giving me a 20% premium - volume is limiting so some still go through ring, never disapointed and always seem to do better than most hill sheep but not as high as the "perfect" grades.
Pure lambs take 12-18 months to finish to worthwhile weight. Xbred 6-9 months.
The reason for forming a flock commercially is this simply;
1) they eat less grass so I can stock more per acre if needed /
2) they eat less grass so I can keep the same stock per acre and buy in less feed if needed
3) I run a ZERO input system - IE no supplementary feeding, No housing in winter, no licks (Unless veterinarian advised - currently magnesium lick as soil is deficient) The only feeding done is Hay / Silage / Fodder beet (which ever is cheapest) when their is more than half an inch of snow on the ground.
4) They are hard as boot leather - I've seen them live and not loose form in weather which can kill 2-3% of a normal flock. Their feet are brilliant and they seem to have more survival sense than most other breeds.
5) I select for animals that do well under these conditions (much the same method as for the easycare breed).
6) They can live and breed for 10+ years (I've got 8+yolds now and have met and seen 12yold breeding ewes in good fettle)
In short - They were the smallest (thus lowest feed req) of the 3 breeds I narrowed down to - Easycare, hebridean and Lleyn.
They offered the most £proft Per Acre of land in hand, of all the breeds, (By a margin of 40% over lleyn) - This is mostly out of me not having to buy in tons of ewe nuts, licks and their longevity meaning only half as many need to be retained for replacement breeding animals. Other savings are quite small and mostly time related.(which If I valued at £20ph/ day job rate - would be worth 100% over again so their, that alone frees me up to work elsewhere).
MOre could be made If I put more to a terminal sire, as I could get rid of the lambs 6 months earlier, and thus probably carry more ewes overall - however Id rather build up my flock so will be keeping it mostly pure for the future.
-
ANd I got what I wanted the other night - Found under a hedge this evening with mum (MIA for 3 days) a Heb lamb, purebred from registered stock with a white topknot :) 4 hornbuds and lots of energy.
Bring on the diversity
-
Now that's interesting coximus. Are you registering her? Any chance of a pic?
-
I will take some pics on sunday afternoon - I totally forgot to get a pic as I was rushed and spent ages chasing my sisters 3 mares from trying to steal the poor thing - everyone wants a baby all of a sudden, even the mules with the 4 month old lambs.....
Whats even more interesting is the breeding history - mother was bred replacement by another breeder with no relation history of white marking, as was the ram, and the ram I know has fathered over 100 lambs in past 3 years without throwing anything like this.