The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Jamie12 on October 07, 2014, 07:15:44 pm
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I will be taking delivery of my new shearling charollais over the next few days. Starting to get excited about tupping now!
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I just bought a Charolais shearling tip at the weekend, he makes my Ryeland Tup lamb look miniature!
Be nice to see a picture on here if you've got one and I will post one of mine once I download some.
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I decided on one of the smaller boys, some were monsters. I'd like to think mine is a good quality lad, well in proportion, with good limbs, tight wool,etc,
Not sure how to post a photo?. What are your ewe lambs/ ewes?
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I've got 13 mule cross Charolais's, 6 suffolk cross mules and ten Ryelands.
The Ryelands will be tupped by the pedigree tup, some are pedigree so will be keeping some ewe lambs.
Some of the Charolais and Suffolk x mules won't run with the tup as they are this years lambs so a little young/small.
The beauty of having the two flocks is that I can breed the Ryeland with the Charolais which make good butchers lambs as well as some good breeding ewes.
What are you crossing yours with?
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My ewe lambs are Suffolk mule crosses. Any smaller ones will be seperated and left till next year.
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The Charollais was one of the breeds where the wool was improved by breeding in some Merino blood. The English Down sheep were similarly improved in the late 18th Century. The breed originated in an area of France considerably warmer and drier than the UK so there's a bit of question mark over its hardiness in exposed sites. Several local farmers are switching from the Charollais as a terminal sire due to the lambs struggling to cope with the last two very wet Springs.
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Do you think a charollais ram is a bad idea then marches farmer?
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Where are you located Jamie? Outdoor/indoor lambing?
I quite like Charlies to be honest, makes lambing nice n easy usually slip out, especially on a seasoned ewe, and decent growers.
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Dont worry about charlys not being "tough" I outdoor lamb and never had a charlie cross lamb get cold or die of cold or wet or anything
My charollais ram lamb is january born and been living outdoors since he was turfed outside at 24hrs old!
Also the charmoise is french (and was used to create the charollais) and has a fine coat and no hair on ears etc and they do fine in all weathers outside, very tough little monsters, I am lambing some this year in January and then lambing 60 ewes all to charmoise and charollais tups outdoors in march
Should make some nice lambs to your suffolk x mules!!
good luck :thumbsup:
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I'm in south Scotland, not to exposed where I am and planning to lamb in a poly tunnel.
They seem ideal for ease of lambing which is what am after
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Cant see you having any bother over mules pal. And yeah, we saw a difference in terms of ease comparing Charlie tup to suffolks we use to use.