The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: charlievickery on January 30, 2025, 03:18:51 pm
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Hi. New smallholder here. We're looking to buy 3 or 4 lambs for grazing some paddock land and then taking for slaughter in around November. We'd like to have rare breeds if possible. Ideally, we'd like to have the lambs from around April / May. Does anyone have a recommendation for who might be able to help? Thanks
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If you want to buy lambs at that time of year, your options are either ewes with lambs at foot or bottle fed lambs. Or wait a bit longer into the summer and buy some store lambs that are weaned off mum.
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Whereabouts are you, Charlie?
To add to what Twizzel says, if you buy ewes with lambs at foot, you can either sell on the ewes later or send them for slaughter too. That needs more careful planning of course, but for example we'll have ewes who will naturally be lambing for the last time this year and would fit in with that.
If you're not planning to breed from these animals, I wouldn't worry too much about them being rare breed. Instead, concentrate on getting something easy to handle and not prone to escapology (been there, made that mistake).
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To add to this, rare breed lambs that would be ready for slaughter in November limits your choice.
I can only speak for whitefaced woodlands, but these don't actually lamb until april may and aren;t ready for slaughter until february the year after
So you might be after a january born lamb (one of the "downs"?) that grow quickly. Or, perhaps a cross ?
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To add to this, rare breed lambs that would be ready for slaughter in November limits your choice.
I can only speak for whitefaced woodlands, but these don't actually lamb until april may and aren;t ready for slaughter until february the year after
So you might be after a january born lamb (one of the "downs"?) that grow quickly. Or, perhaps a cross ?
Agree, but be warned, price may be high due to Spring Lamb. When I was lambing my Dorset Downs in December, I was selling for killing in March and the money was fab!
Another option would be cades, I used to get 3 or 4 a year to bottle, original idea was to eat them...... Most were really good mums for the short time they were here due to being off Mules.
Get wethers, that they you either eat them or they are pets for life! (Got one of them too, he wouldn't suck off his mum, mug here decided to help him...... He's 8 this month!)
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Thanks all for your replies. Some good ideas here. Having spoken to a few more people now, looks like most of the rare breeds won't work for my proposed timescale. Downs has been suggested by someone else as well. We're near Reading.
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The truth is if you're not going to breed from them, it doesn't really matter what you get. Each breed has its advantages and disadvantages, and you'll learn from that and then either repeat it or do something different that suits you better.
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Cade lambs from any commercial breed will be ready for slaughter at 4-6 months.
We used to slaughter our Llanwenog rare breed lambs in late Oct/Nov .... and sell direct (too small for commercial meat market) but very saleable.
until we tasted Hogget .... all now kept till 14-16 months for larger more tasty carcase.