The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Startingout on February 20, 2022, 07:53:28 am
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We are getting some Zwartbles sheep. My reading so far suggests that they are generally easy lambers, milky, friendly, easy to handle, and hardy. People on the breed society FB page are very enthusiastic.
However, I've also read on a few sites, that they can be hard to get fat, and now that feet can be a problem?
[member=2128]Womble[/member] you kindly said you could give some advice?
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It's good to collect some views from both sides of the fence, I would think, so that you are forewarned and can be forearmed as to any predictable problems.
Breed Societies and breeders are always very enthusiastic about their breed and find it hard to see fault! lol.
When I came here, with my little mixed flock of easy keepers with nice fleece, the incumbent small flock were Zwartbles.
I will try to be objective...
Good points
- very hardy, girt thick fleeces that the weather doesn't permeate
- very friendly sheep, extremely easy to tame and to get to follow a bucket
- very milky (originally a dairy breed), so generally their lambs do extremely well
- great big sheepskins (buy back from the abattoir and send off for tanning) which are gorgeous, and provide another income stream
- naturally polled (hornless)
- decent crossing sheep, we never had issues with lambs getting stuck no matter what tup we used. The only difficult lambings we had with Zwartbles were over-fittened ewes having triplets, not enough room inside the fatter sheep to get all the lambs organised and birthed. My advice would be to keep them at around CS2.5, not as high as 3 and certainly not over 3.
- the meat is amazing. I had expected to be able to convert the folks here to the primitives and crosses type sheep easily because Shetland and Manx meat is so flavoursome. But in fact the Zwartbles meat is excellent, even I say it's very nearly as good as Shetland or Manx.
- huge joints. Is a bonus for us, we are a community of 20+ adults and 10+ children, so when we do a roast, we will eat a lot of meat! We do either one Zwartbles leg, or 2 Shetland cross legs, or 3 pure Shetland or Manx legs!
Less good points
- whilst some Zwartbles are now bred for softer, crimpier fleeces, many have fleece which is not particularly appealing to me as a handspinner. And even the softer, crimpier ones do not float my boat. But they have their fans and the fleece is by no means unusable. Being always black, and the offspring always black no matter what you cross them with, it's not good fleece for dyeing! And it doesn't wet felt easily (unless from the softer crimpier lines), which can be a bonus - but not to a felter, lol.
- the corollary of being so friendly (and so large) is that inexperienced keepers often over-tame them, and then can't safely get feed into the troughs etc as the huge sheep just bowl them over! My advice would be to aim for a mutually respectful relationship, where the sheep aren't in fear of you, but do not invade your space unless invited. And remember how big that cute little lambie will grow... ;)
- feet are generally not the best. My advice would be to be ruthless in terms of who you keep and who you breed from. If she's needed attention to her feet more than once, she's dinner; doesn't go back to the tup.
- can be very susceptible to fly strike, and it can be harder to spot on the very thick black fleece. I would suggest you use anti flystrike meds / sprays (as well as vigilance, the meds aren't a guarantee but will reduce the incidence hugely.)
- the corollary of being very milky is that the ewes will need feeding before and after lambing. I wouldn't try to keep triplets on a Zwartbles (unless maybe she - and the lambs - will accept help in terms of you topping up the lambs in the field) because she will lose so much condition she would become a prime candidate for twin lamb disease the following year. If you do keep triplets on a Zwartbles ewe, wean at 16-18 weeks so you have time to dry her off and then get some condition back on her before she goes back to the tup. (Not too much condition, but you don't want her as low as CS2 going back to the tup after triplets.)
- they get quite fat if they have a year off (even if they started very thin after doing their lambs too well), so we found it best to keep ewes in lamb and cull any gelds.
- first timers are best lambed indoors or at least penned up with their lambs for the first 48 hours. They mostly don't bond well the first time without intervention. I have never seen this after the first time, once they have experienced mother love it seems to kick in fine on subsequent lambings. (We are an outdoor lambing flock here, and they are generally fine with that after the first time.)
- Ewes have quite short working lives. Our best Zwartbles, Gwenneth, was an excellent ewe in every respect, but was worn out after 4 crops (all twins.) And she had been put to the Shetland tup 3 of those times, a Romney once, so she hadn't been overworked. None of the Zwartbles ewes here had ever kept on going easily for 6, 7, even 8 crops, like some Shetlands would. (We have one of Gwenneth's last Shetland x daughters in lamb for the first time now, will be interesting to see how she does.) Fortunes have been spent here, unsuccessfully, on meds and investigations on favourite Zwartbles ewes who are not recovering condition after their 3rd or 4th crop... My advice would be don't expect long working lives, and cull any ewe who doesn't regain condition easily before tupping.
- They are so big that small shepherds may struggle to tip a Zwartbles over for attending to feet, trimming bellies, etc. However, we found most of the Zwartbles amenable to being taught to have their feet lifted like a horse. It's more difficult to do their feet this way, though.
- huge joints. (Listed in both lists.) If you are a family of two, a whole Zwartbles main joint will likely go off before you eat it all. (So tell your butcher to do shanks and leg steaks, split the shoulders, etc. And/or do rolled joints, which can be cut down to whatever sizes work for you, with the legs and shoulders.)
All of which said, if you buy wisely from a flock which breeds for good mothering and good feet, and you don't over-handle them, they are a great choice for novice sheepkeepers.
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Wow! Thanks for such a detailed list. I had read that people tend to tend to Zwartbles standing, rather than tipping.
What are your views on Shetlands? That is our other thought.
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Zwartbles and shetlands are total opposite ends of the spectrum. One very prolific, the other fairy low maintenance and not so prolific.
One downside to being very milky with any breed can be more prone to mastitis.
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Okay, let's try this as objectively as I can. Warning - this could get long!
Let's start by saying that not all Zwartbles are built equally. There is what people refer to as the Dutch type, which are tall, leggy and elegant. Then there's another type which are stockier and more commercial looking. The type you pick should reflect your overall aim for keeping them.
One accusation I've seen is that Zwartbles tend to have bad feet. Six years ago, I would have agreed with that, and we gave our flock a round of footvax to get on top of a persistent footrot problem. However, I now believe that the issue was caused by a zinc deficiency in our pasture which was causing them to have weak hooves. I say that because sheep which arrived here with perfectly good hooves started to get horizontal cracks where new (post-arrival) growth met old (pre-arrival) growth, which then let in infection. Once we gave them a "zinc-rich" Rockies mineral lick, those problems disappeared. We never repeated the footvax, and 3/4 of our flock have now never had it.
We now rarely do anything with hooves except trim the occasional overgrown one. Sometimes the lambs get a bit of scald (like athlete's foot between the toes), but that's easily dealt with with a bit of spray, or if it's a few of them, putting them through a zinc sulphate footbath.
Re mastitis, yes we've lost a few good ewes due to mastitis. However, I don't think it's any more of an issue with Zs than it is with any other non-primitive breed. I have a friends who keep a large flock of Zs alongside others on a commercial sheep farm, and that's also their view.
OK then, advantages and disadvantages. As you'll see, often the disadvantage is just the flip side of the advantage, so it all depends on what you're looking for:
Advantages:
- They lamb really easily, and are great mothers. We rarely need to assist a birth, and if we do, there's plenty of room to get your hand in!
- They tend to be ridiculously friendly. I can walk up to most of ours in the field and catch them. To catch the flock, I open the pen up and then walk into it, and they follow me. This saves a lot of money on dog food.
- They're big sheep. There's a lot of meat on a Zwartbles.
- The lambs will finish the same year they're born. This is important for us because our land has a much smaller carrying capacity in winter c/w summer. Because we're not over-wintering hoggs, we can keep more ewes.
- The meat tastes great. We consistently get comments of 'best lamb ever'. They tend not to get over-fat (our lambs tend to grade (https://projectblue.blob.core.windows.net/media/Default/Imported%20Publication%20Docs/Marketing%20prime%20lamb%20for%20better%20returns.pdf) U3L or R3L, which is fine).
- They're milky and prolific. Most of the time ours have twins or triplets. Whilst we will try to give one triplet to a ewe with a single, if that isn't possible, she tends to raise all three no problem, though we do wean them earlier to give Mum a chance to recover.
- They're very beautiful sheep, and easy to spot in both mud and snow ;D . If you're going to have to tend to your flock every day, you might as well have something you like the look of.
- Most big flocks are MV tested / accredited (https://www.sruc.ac.uk/business-services/what-is-your-goal/veterinary-laboratory-services/sheep-and-goat-health-schemes/premium-sheep-and-goat-health-schemes/about-the-diseases/). There is therefore a very low chance of ever having problems with MV.
- There is a market for the fleece to crafters (particularly felters) if you're prepared to put in the effort for the meagre returns (we aren't!).
- They make excellent "recip" ewes for embryo transplant, because they're easy lambing and produce more milk and for longer than other breeds. This is worth mentioning because firstly it gives versatility and secondly it provides a market for mis-marked ewes.
- They can lamb at a year old (we don't, but some do, particularly to a smaller tup). Also if you were on good ground and really wanted to, you could lamb them three times in two years.
Disadvantages:
- They tend to be ridiculously friendly. I once heard two farmers talking at an auction: "I just don't understand these Zwartbles. I mean, if you want a big wooly dug, get yersel' an effing poodle" ;D .
If you have a small flock, their friendliness can be great, but for example, it's really difficult to feed ours without getting knocked over in the mud because they have no fear of me and won't keep at a distance. This is also embarrassing at the abattoir because they invariably refuse to leave the trailer. Part of this will be the amount of contact they have with us, and the fact that we never chase them around, so they never learn to run away from us. However, part of it is just that they were originally a dairy breed, and are inherently friendlier than most. If I had five sheep, I'd get Zs. If I had five hundred, I definitely wouldn't. - They're big sheep. I can't tip the tups, and have to check their feet as you would a horse. That said, because they're friendly, this is no problem at all, and actually they're easier handled than our previous Manx Loaghtans, just because they're far less skittish.
- They definitely need more feeding than other breeds. If you don't feed the ewes, they will 'milk off their backs' (lose condition) because they're putting so much into their lambs. If you don't feed the lambs, they tend to suddenly start growing upwards rather than outwards, and can be hard to finish. I think it's fair to say that Zs are higher-input, higher-output than a lot of breeds.
- Black sheep tend to get a slightly lower sale price in the fat ring than white sheep. Also it's harder to spot fly strike on a black fleece, and we've not yet found a marker spray that works well (we colour code the white bits instead!)
- Most big flocks are MV tested / accredited. Though you can show ,and sell at breed society sales without accreditation, you'll achieve a lower price. Accreditation unfortunately does not come cheap. You can keep the cost of that down by only buying from accredited flocks in the first place, and then keeping distance between your sheep and other people's, but it's wise to be aware of that from the outset.
- If you want to get serious about showing, you have to lamb in January.
Right, that's enough for now. Feel free to disagree folks - debate is good - but please keep it respectful!
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I keep Zwartbles so I am biased.
I decided that if I was going to be chasing sheep at least it would be ones that I like the look of. Mine cross graze with the horses and lamb indoors during February. I have never had to flush the ewes before tupping and with only one left to lamb this year they have all had twins.
Whilst the wool will not wet felt I have found that it needle felts very well. I have purposely chosen the nicer fleeces in my flock and we have found it excellent for novice spinners to learn with.
The biggest bad point is that they are prone to foot problems, especially on wet ground.
A lot of pedigree breeders get hung up on the markings and prioritise that over conformation. This means that you can pick up well bred sheep with poor markings for less money than perfectly marked sheep. I also have found that these sheep will breed perfectly marked lambs :)
Due to only having small numbers I sell my ewes on when quite young, they go to either a commercial flock in the next village or as embryo recipients for a local texel breeder. This year I will be selling 6 of the 10 that have lambed as I have six ewe lambs from last year to come into the flock. As it has been a ewe lamb year I will have to sell 6/7 ewe lambs at weaning this time as the majority of the sheep have had twin girls. Numbers could very easily get out of hand if I kept everything.
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A lot of pedigree breeders get hung up on the markings and prioritise that over conformation. This means that you can pick up well bred sheep with poor markings for less money than perfectly marked sheep. I also have found that these sheep will breed perfectly marked lambs :)
Yes, that's definitely true!
Also there are a fair few around with poor conformation AND poor markings. Hobby breeders (yeah, I know I'm one as well) tend to love all of their sheep and hence want to sell all of them to good homes, when plenty should have gone to the butcher. That is especially true of tups. The good news is that a good but not show-winning tup from good bloodlines is often pretty cheap. Also we found that because lots of people lamb in January, you can buy a good, proven tup in September for less than you'd pay in April.
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So priorities are conformation, then markings. Only breed if they meet the society standards. Ruthlessly cull for bad feet, udders, and mothers.
I did have a chance to buy some mismarked unregistered Zwartbles but I couldn't really see the point if I want to (ideally) add to the breed rather than destroy it!
I have been told that another ⅓ acre may be available. It's not much, but it's a start that word is getting around about our venture. I'm hoping that more land gets opened up through word of mouth. In the meantime, we know that we are starting small and will need to stay small unless we get more land, so it makes sense to only keep and register the very best we can produce.
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So priorities are conformation, then markings. Only breed if they meet the society standards. Ruthlessly cull for bad feet, udders, and mothers.
I did have a chance to buy some mismarked unregistered Zwartbles but I couldn't really see the point if I want to (ideally) add to the breed rather than destroy it!
I have been told that another ⅓ acre may be available. It's not much, but it's a start that word is getting around about our venture. I'm hoping that more land gets opened up through word of mouth. In the meantime, we know that we are starting small and will need to stay small unless we get more land, so it makes sense to only keep and register the very best we can produce.
It’ll be hard to cull ruthlessly especially when you have to buy in replacements for the first couple of years, but it is 100% worth doing. It’ll make your life easier in the long run and your flock will be better for it. With a small flock there’s absolutely no room for passengers, so decide what your culling reasons are, and stick to them. Breeding your own replacements will improve your flock too, as you’re not buying someone’s second best (no one sells their absolute best stock :thinking: )
How many acres have you got to start with?
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We're only on 4 acres to start, so super small flock. Although through word of mouth already there may be another bit of land opening up. The landowner is also on the look out for more land. So I'm hopeful that in time we can start to expand.
For now, small is good 😊
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(no one sells their absolute best stock :thinking: )
Mostly true, but folks do have to move tups on once they are coming onto their daughters. And if they've used him for two or three seasons, then he has done a good job, so an "aged" tup can be an opportunity to get an excellent animal for a fraction of what he would have cost as a shearling.
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So priorities are conformation, then markings. Only breed if they meet the society standards. Ruthlessly cull for bad feet, udders, and mothers.
Yep. Buy as well as you can to start with, and then cull any with persistent problems. We ended up overstocked a few years ago when we lost some rented grazing. That led to some really difficult decisions, but basically any animal we weren't 100% sure about went to the abattoir. You know the Pareto principle that 80% of your problems come from 20% of your root causes? It turns out that if you put those root causes in a casserole, suddenly your life becomes much easier!
BTW, I wouldn't necessarily say only breed if they meet the standard - at least not with respect to markings. Mis-marked sheep are still sheep, and will still breed well. You just won't be able to sell lambs from non-registered parents as pedigree.
Also, you didn't say whereabouts you are, but we're actually overstocked again, and will be selling some ewes with lambs at foot soon...
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Ooh that's exciting. We're in Southampton.
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LOL, sadly that's a long way from us in Scotland. However, once you've definitely decided on Zwartbles, join the Zwartbles Sheep Association (https://www.zwartbles.org/), and that gives you access to a list of members that you can search to find other flocks nearby.
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Yes it is far too far away, although my Dad is Scottish, so I love Scotland!
I have found a few people on the Southern Zwartbles group, so we have made contact and visited our first sheep. We're getting them in March 😊
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For any beginner, I'd recommend Shetlands and cross them to give a decent butchers lamb. We started with Coloured Ryelands and we loved them but I had sheep experience. For a complete beginner, Shetlands are hard to beat. We have a couple and I've never seen them lamb - check them, go back in an hour and two lambs are bouncing round the pen.
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For any beginner, I'd recommend Shetlands and cross them to give a decent butchers lamb. We started with Coloured Ryelands and we loved them but I had sheep experience. For a complete beginner, Shetlands are hard to beat. We have a couple and I've never seen them lamb - check them, go back in an hour and two lambs are bouncing round the pen.
Sounds like the OP has chosen and booked some Zwartbles by now ;) - but I agree that Shetlands have much to commend them, especially the hands-off lambing. My top bit of lambing kit is a pair of binoculars so I can keep an eye from a distance; I rarely need to go closer. On one occasion, I did go up quietly once I saw the first lamb, hoping to be able to video the second coming out. The ewe stood up, I switched on my video recorder, she turned around to face me, and there was lamb #2 dropping to the ground behind her! The lambs pretty much jump up and run straight to the milk bar too, and are very persistent, so even with first timers who are finding it all a bit discombobulating, the lambs pretty much always manage to get their colostrum without any human intervention.
(I have said many times that if my only needs were the shepherding and the welfare and wellbeing of the sheep, I would have pure Shetlands, put to a Shetland tup, every single time. )
But, given the provisos about lambing first time Zwartbles mums indoors, or at least where they can be penned with their lambs under cover pretty quickly after giving birth (and then of course making sure that the lambs are being mothered properly, get their colostrum, etc etc), and getting the feeding right, I think Zs are a pretty good choice for first time sheepkeepers too.
Several of us have said on this thread and others similar, that it is very important to to get sheep (or any livestock) that float your boat, so if the OP goes gooey at Zs and not at Shetlands, I would say that they have made the right decision for them! :)
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I go a bit gooey when I see Shetlands, too, but I read that they are good jumpers and escape artists.
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The biggest difference between Shetlands and Zwartbles is that for Shetlands you will need to grow them until their second summer at least - their meat is fantastic as hogget but even better as mutton. However you will need enough land to grow them on over winter (they will not need hard feed but hay is good), you are unlikely to get any reasonable amounts for them if selling through the mart, but could have a good business if you are able to sell meat directly.
Shetlands are opportunists, and if you are relying on rented ground where you cannot guarantee the quality of either the grass or the fences, you are better off with large sheep that stay put.
Selling fleece from Shetlands will also not give you a profit, but selling skins, if they are done well could.
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I go a bit gooey when I see Shetlands, too, but I read that they are good jumpers and escape artists.
Some are and they can be. But get the right sheep from the right breeder, and keep them happy (ie., on decent grass with some shelter), behind normal, well-maintained stock fencing and you will be fine.
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- first timers are best lambed indoors or at least penned up with their lambs for the first 48 hours. They mostly don't bond well the first time without intervention. I have never seen this after the first time, once they have experienced mother love it seems to kick in fine on subsequent lambings. (We are an outdoor lambing flock here, and they are generally fine with that after the first time.)
Hi Sally, I hadn't seen this until you mentioned it again.
Honestly? This isn't my experience at all. So far, we've had two ewes that didn't immediately want their lambs. Each time we put that down to first time nerves, but actually they were no better the next year, so they became casseroles. Actually that's not true - one of them was called Caribbean - she became a number of very tasty curries :innocent: .
I have had ewes try to steal lambs from others, which is a good reason for penning, but apart from the two just mentioned we've never had an issue. So, yes it can happen, but I don't think it's accurate to say they 'mostly don't bond well'.
They do tend to stay behind fences BTW - they're too big to do much jumping.
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Well, I can only share my own experience, which clearly differs from yours! You have way more experience of Zwartbles than I do, but the ones I lambed here (some bred here and some bought in) were not great first time - apart from the mighty Gwenneth.
So maybe the message is to try to source from a flock which has good first time mothering. All breeders will say their sheep have great feet, lamb easily and mother beautifully, so I s'pose ideally try to find a flock which is recommended by others. Hopefully there will be a return to shows, and smallholder events, and the like, for those interactions to happen!
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I'm completely late to the party but did comment on your thread on Facebook. Congratulations on having chosen your first stock, and I'm sure you'll love them. They are a brilliant breed :thumbsup:
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Well, I can only share my own experience, which clearly differs from yours!
...... which tells us something, don't you think? Mothering aside, the Zs you started with - would you have bought them had it been your choice? For instance were they good examples of the breed and was their conformation good?
It's been said already, but not all sheep are built equally. I think that must be doubly true for a breed where there is pressure to select for pretty markings rather than one where they all look ostensibly the same?
I know you've talked before of flocks that always lamb indoors potentially masking things like mothering issues which then persist. There is also the issue of my flock becoming adapted to my ground and conditions over time, so they might not do as well for you, for instance?
Also nobody sells their best sheep - I certainly wouldn't. We made a rule that we will never sell an animal to anybody else that we wouldn't happily keep ourselves if we had the space, but that may not be true for everybody!
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...... which tells us something, don't you think? Mothering aside, the Zs you started with - would you have bought them had it been your choice? For instance were they good examples of the breed and was their conformation good?
It's been said already, but not all sheep are built equally. I think that must be doubly true for a breed where there is pressure to select for pretty markings rather than one where they all look ostensibly the same?
No obvious issues with any of the Zs here when I arrived, no.
Funnily enough, Gwenneth had cost more than the others because she was (so they tell me) perfectly marked. The folks here didn't care two hoots about that, but they did think Gwenneth was the best ewe lamb they were being shown, so paid the extra for her. And she was the best of all of the Zs here, by a mile (although her fleece was fairly horrible.) I liked her because she was an excellent sheep in every respect (bar that fleece.) So that also tells us that the folks who bought the sheep in before I came could tell a good sheep. ;)
Gwenneth just didn't last very long, sadly :'( And another sheep from that same place went the same way, just never really regained condition after a few lambings. Investigations and treatments discovered nothing and fixed nothing, same as we later went through with Gwenneth. (Which was why we went through the shenanigans and expense of all the Johnes' disease investigations with Gwenneth - it seemed the most likely explanation, having ruled most other things out, and if it was Johnes, we needed to know. But that all came back negative, and no other obvious issues post mortem at the abattoir either, so it remains a mystery.)
Two other Zs here were good sheep to begin with, and one had a very nice fleece (as Z fleece goes). But all that line got mastitis at around crop 2 or 3, so the whole line went in the freezer.
I think it is always a balancing act trying to run two quite different breeds (of any species) on the same system. Our system suits primitives and crosses better than it suits Zwartbles. Although it does seem to suit Wensleydales fine too, which is a bit surprising, but maybe being from the north of England they have been bred for tougher conditions than the Dutch dairy sheep. And Wenseys aren't particularly milky, so they don't have that demand on their systems.
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I know you've talked before of flocks that always lamb indoors potentially masking things like mothering issues which then persist. There is also the issue of my flock becoming adapted to my ground and conditions over time, so they might not do as well for you, for instance?
I do think that about buying in from an indoor lambing flock, yes - irrespective of breed. And the same negative pressure, in spades, with a dairy breed operated for dairy. For sure, you don't necessarily lose mothering - most Jersey cows are devoted mothers, given the opportunity - but you have an absence of selection for good mothering-up.
As to the "terroir" effect, the breeder was very local and the holding not dissimilar as I understand it. But their management was different to ours.
Also nobody sells their best sheep - I certainly wouldn't. We made a rule that we will never sell an animal to anybody else that we wouldn't happily keep ourselves if we had the space, but that may not be true for everybody!
Well it's true for me, not that I sell many in the normal course of events. It's as much about not wanting a ewe put into a situation where she performs poorly / is stressed as it is a matter of professional pride. Breeders have the added incentive of reputation - hard won and easily lost, as you have said before!
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I'm completely late to the party but did comment on your thread on Facebook. Congratulations on having chosen your first stock, and I'm sure you'll love them. They are a brilliant breed :thumbsup:
Thank you! I'm still in the stage where I find all sheep talk fascinating, so it's nice to read the debates about various types of sheep, etc.
I'm sure I'll have a billion questions once the sheep land!
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I'm still in the stage where I find all sheep talk fascinating
Me too :) (15 years in... ;D)