The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: thenovice on January 21, 2013, 07:49:42 pm
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Just wondered if anyone on here had tried putting a different breed of tup to heb ewes, and what the results were like, esp if it was a commercial type ram? Thanks all :thinking:
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We have used a texel - gave nicely matched lambs, grew faster than pure Heb so ready Nov/Dec, more compact carcase and lovely skins for tanning. They got us a first prize at our local show for crossbred meat lambs :thumbsup: Oh and of course they are white.
We have also used a Jacob tup - again faster growing so ready in the autumn, as big as the Jacobs, interesting skins/spinning fleece, and they are black, sometimes with some white splashes.
You can use many different breeds of tup, but best not to choose one with too large a head (the texel we used was smaller in the head and shoulders than many). Hebs have a larger pelvis for their size than more commercial breeds, but still it's best not to use something huge.
Hebs are very milky (they were many crofters' milk supply) so have no problem in supporting faster growing crossbred twins.
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I have used a Charolais tup and pleased with results lambs white and polled also averaged about 33kg by aug time there were no assists and lambs had plenty of vigour
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Reading FW's experiences I'd suggest that a Charollais could work well. We find they give smaller, more slippery (easily lambed) and active lambs than the Texel, fatten and fitten tremendously well (very solid, well-muscled.)
The only thing to watch is that the lambs can be quite bare, so depending on where you are, when you lamb, and what the weather is doing, you may need to house the newborns for a day or two and/or put little plastic macs on them. We were advised to use a tup with plenty of wool on his head, and sure enough, most of our Charollais x lambs have enough fleece at birth to cope with normal spring weather, but we still get a few each year are quite bare.
Our Charollais x fleeces are beautiful for spinning, so I'd expect the fleeces from a Heb x Charollais to be really quite special.
Cross-posted with mark@farmhouse - agree completely :thumbsup:
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We have used a big Texel. Majority of lambs white. All females polled, males horned. No lambing issues. Ewes we kept matured into very nice sheep. Much bigger than Hebs but retaining their hardiness.