The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Merrie Dancer on April 04, 2014, 10:20:44 am
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we are hoping to get some sheep to keep on our croft and are wondering what breed to get.
these sheep will need to be hardy, easy to round up and also sell for a good price. it will be shared hill ground. we have considered shetlands but would love to consider rare breeds as long as they are saleable through the mart/abattoir. they have to be profitable.
thankyou
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Trouble with that is that firstly you cannot guarantee that any sheep will make you money and rare breeds in general are not that profitable, hence why they are rare breeds and do not sell particularly well at marts as they are different to the norm. You can get decent crosses out of them some of which are saleable but if you want to make a profit you are best looking at what the majority of farmers in the area have, as there is a reason why they have them. In general on hill ground you are breeding to produce breeding stock pure for hill and crossed for lowland farmers rather than specifically for fat lambs, so something like the Swaledale or Scottish Blackface depending on the area you are in.
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lleyn x welsh, my favourite cross looking through our ewes, lleyn for theyre stature, rangy, big ewes then with a supson of welsh, again for theyre toughness, renowned mothering skills, and like the lleyn they are bright and easy to train i find. some think that the lleyns are a bit bonkers, i just find theyre too clever for theyre own good hehe. so yeah i think the lleyn will give good size and small elegant head and the welsh will up the timber x
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I'm in a similar position. I want some sheep that are reasonably docile (or at least unflighty) to cross to something commercial to produce either fat lambs or breeding stock, but can't decide what to go for. I'm on the North York Moors so fairly bleak and have somewhat untrustworthy dry stone wall field boundaries which have held my texel cross and mule pet lambs (now big fat 2 year olds) but would be a joke to something like Herdwicks.
I'd love to have some Greyface Dartmoors or Whitefaced Woodlands to cross with possibly a Suffolk or Texel for big meat lambs but they are.... well... RARE. I'll probably go for whatever I can get at the local mart in the end, for the reasons moony states, but as I'm not too far from York and the Rare Breed Sale is at the end of the month, I might get lucky!
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Unless you are going for the rare breed sales for breeding stock, then the marts are not the best place to sell rare breeds - they go for next to nothing at my local mart each week. You would need to cross them with something that will produce a more commercial type of lamb such as a charollais/suffolk or texel but even then, your buyers are likely to pay a lot less than a more recognised commercial cross. Unless you are keeping sheep on a large scale it is very difficult to make much profit at all - definately don't go in to sheep if you think you are going to make a lot of money from them.
Have you considered the Swaledale?
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lleyn x welsh, my favourite cross looking through our ewes, lleyn for theyre stature, rangy, big ewes then with a supson of welsh, again for theyre toughness, renowned mothering skills, and like the lleyn they are bright and easy to train i find. some think that the lleyns are a bit bonkers, i just find theyre too clever for theyre own good hehe. so yeah i think the lleyn will give good size and small elegant head and the welsh will up the timber x
always a personal preference and i'm very biassed I'm sure but I'd agree with Hellybee. I think a lleyn is a cracking sheep and we have a mix of lleyns, wilts horn and lleyn X wilts. maybe its because we handle ours a fair bit and are always calm and quiet around them and don't chase them round the fields with a dog but our lleyns are docile, completely bucket trained ( actually whistle trained too) I know certain breeds are more prone to flightiness but I believe that what ultimately decides how easy they are to handle is the handler
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+1 for Lleyn/lleyn mongrels - I do chase mine around with a dog now and then and find them easier to work with than some other wilder/hillier breeds
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hehe the bucket training bit is a bit of an experience, ours are and i get a daily mugging, gawd they love theyre nuts.
we are currently looking to bring in new rams, i think a little more welsh here, we shall see, got all summer to mull it over x
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Zwartbles. Very docile, easy lambers. Brilliant as pure breds and make cracking crosses expecially with a commercial type. Big lambs too.
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I like a Lleyn, but I don't know if they are suited to your ground.
Were I you, I'd be looking at a NCC first off.
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what is a NCC?
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NCC = North Country Cheviot
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:wave: easycare :thumbsup: all the way although they are more upland as hill .mine did fine on hill but they came of at tupping time . if its a harsh hill i would go for blackfaces cover them with nearly any tup and you will get a good cross lamb for fat or breeding :sheep:
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Blackies or Swales, put a Leicester onto them to produce mule lambs. They'll sell well, it's an accepted set-up in the hills.
Shetlands can be bucket trained, but small and grow slowly, I'm about to try a crossing tup on mine but even so, they won't be the size of commercial sheep. You'd have to sell purebreds at specialist sales, not the general mart as has been said.
Cheviots are a good solid hill sheep - haven't kept them, a few folk round here do, I like the look of them. I suspect they need better grazing that the ubiquitous Swales who apparently can survive on mist and moss.
I used to keep Rough Fells. Huge mountain sheep, very friendly, tups away at 6 months to the butchers, make a cracking mule or cross. Not numerically a rare breed, as there am some big flocks of them locally, but included as very geographically constrained. I love them to bits and would still have them if I had better sheep handling facilities (they became too big for me to manage in wooden hurdle pens, turning by hand).
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Hmm, rare breeds are rare for a reason, you know that when you keep them (like myself) and so it would be hard to make them profitable never mind pay for themselves, you have to be an 'enthusiast' to keep them.
Making sheep profitable would have to mean numbers I would think, or you have to cross them with the right breed - Texel sheep are really cows aren't they?, in sheeps clothing :D
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thanks so much.
we will be progressing from having a small breeding flock of primitive sheep to have the grazing for 50 ewes.
easy management ie lambing and herding, plus hardiness is vital. id like a wool that is soft and suitable to spin/sell.
we have always bucket trained our sheep as they were in a small field, but having access to hill land means we will need a dog. where to start with that?? needing a dog will rule out the soay and borerays as im sure they don't herd very well.
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Our North Ronaldsays are very confident biddable little beasties, easy to catch and handle and are less nervous and scared than the soays or moorits. It runs through the NR breed, not just ours that are easy.
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We have boreray and shetland up on our croft without a working dog, keeps me fit! We sell rare breed meat so it can be profitable.
The Shetland wool is nice, boreray is more difficult to handle. Next on my wish list is zwartbles but decent breeding stock is pricey :(
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Not sure where you are but assuming north of scotland as its a croft. I would suggest something local then that you won't have to travel miles to get but also that will suit a wet wilder climate with more rougher grazing.
If your looking for profitability then potentially a primative breed such as the hebridean but cross it with a continental sire such as a suffolk or similar most of the lambs will be white fleeced ( important when selling at the mart as there appears, in some areas, that black lambs will get a slightly lower price). The lambs will grow well on the primative hebs milk and usually bypass there mothers size by the end of the season just finished on grass. They are a very cost effective breed as they require little input
The good thing is that you could buy unregistered hebridean ewes for this process which may not be that expensive to start with so intial input costs are low £20-30 plus a ewe rather than £80-100 plus so even if you get a pound or 2 less for the lambs at the end of the day its all about the pennies made. They also produce nice mule lambs to a blue face leicester. You could put a smaller proportion of the flock to a heb tup to produce ewe replacements ( or buy some registered for this bit - perhaps more expensive - but option of selling registered ewes / tup)
The eating quality of a hebridean is also excellent, if you are looking at a niche market - so the pure boys from the ewe replacement side could be used for this. The above would allow you to have your eggs in several baskets
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Herdwicks! Beautiful and easy if you can get them from someone who has them coming to the bucket and not from the fells. I started as a complete novice with mine as ewe lambs and I'm loving it. I firmly believe you should love the sheep you have and be passionate about the breed so find some that really appeal to you. Good luck!
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I agree with everything that Big Light has said :thumbsup:
Hebrideans would seem to be the obvious breed for your land as they evolved specifically in that environment so can take wet, wind, soggy ground and rough grazing. They are easy lambing - it's unusual for them to need help, they are great mothers, frequently with twins, have plenty of milk and are able to look after themselves and their lambs in the face of many predators. Some people will say they are hard to work with a dog, but several folk who enter sheepdog trials have used Hebs to train their dogs and they are perfectly amenable to that. (Soay are less flockable - it can be done, but yet again we have been beaten today by one ancient old Soay with no teeth and skinny as a rake, but boy can she run ::))
Hebs, when crossed, may benefit from using a tup with narrower shoulders than something like a Texel, but unless you're borrowing a tup, remember that he will need to do on your ground as well as the ewes. Look on the Heb website and I think there will be details on there of popular crosses. They make a neat meat lamb, bigger than the dam, usually white unless you have a black dominant animal in there, they should finish before Christmas. Purebred Heb meat is a known niche product which, if you can use mail order, or have a top restaurant in your area, you will find a good market for. Have a look online at the prices some breeders are asking for boxed hogget. Purebred Hebs take 16 months to finish, especially on harder ground, but as you have the use of hill land that would be ideal. They don't need extra feeding, except maybe hay if you have a bad winter, but they taste all the better for no grain.
Crossbred lambs fleece is very often very useable. Pure Heb fleece is variable and something of an acquired taste, but I love working with mine. If you take care with your fleece production you can sell select fleeces to spinners online, or of course you can use them yourself. Skins can be tanned and sold again online, although you could really only use the ones from early finishers sent off in November.