The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: nutterly_uts on March 22, 2015, 10:19:44 am
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https://www.facebook.com/beltexsheep/photos/a.360259647327473.85411.352756318077806/902840076402758/?type=1 (https://www.facebook.com/beltexsheep/photos/a.360259647327473.85411.352756318077806/902840076402758/?type=1)
Do lambs actually look like that?!
Give me a normal sheep any day if thats what breeding for commerical markets achieves!!
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Totally agree!!
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In the comments someone has asked/put is a landrace pig crossed with a charolais .. or a belgian blue..
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This is (I think ) a purebred terminal sire breed designed to be crossed with a maternal ewe to produce quick growing well muscled lamb ----the lambs from such a sire will not be as extreme
having said that the mainstream market (supermarkets) do not want such extreme carcases , they want R2/R3 lambs at 14 to 21 kg
& I have to agree it's damned ugly
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the mainstream market (supermarkets) do not want such extreme carcases , they want R2/R3 lambs at 14 to 21 kg
Up here, the buyers for the supermarkets pay extra for E and U lambs, and won't take lambs at less than 15kgs deadweight.
If the ugly lamb in the pic can be fit at under 21kgs deadweight, they'd like him - and so would the marts. Which is a shame - do we think he was born naturally or are extreme lambs going the way of extreme cattle, and being bred and delivered by AI / embryo transplant and elective caesarean?
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the mainstream market (supermarkets) do not want such extreme carcases , they want R2/R3 lambs at 14 to 21 kg
Up here, the buyers for the supermarkets pay extra for E and U lambs, and won't take lambs at less than 15kgs deadweight.
If the ugly lamb in the pic can be fit at under 21kgs deadweight, they'd like him - and so would the marts. Which is a shame - do we think he was born naturally or are extreme lambs going the way of extreme cattle, and being bred and delivered by AI / embryo transplant and elective caesarean?
Someone I know produces something similar to this, embroys transplanted into mules and zwartbles, and still finds it financially worthwhile.
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Are these embryo transfer lambs bred for their carcass though or bred to breed from in the future? i.e ram lambs to become stock rams and ewes as ET donor ewes/foundation stock for ET farms...
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In order to produce very good confirmation lambs out of leggy and milky maternal ewes you need a ram with some shape.
This is farming and without income farming would not exist, if the supermarkets are paying extra for grade E3L lambs then of course farmers will try and breed grade E3L lambs to match the extra bonus's paid.
Breeds such as the beltex and charmoise have lots of muscle but very fine bones, so a very high KO% can be achieved, my Charmoise lambs in the summer produced KO percentages of over 60%
Us as farmers need to try and reduces wastage, a suffolk ram has a big head and big bones, the KO% is much much lower, so we are actually producing a lamb wich puts energy into things like bone and heads which no one eats and get chucked away.
Beltex ewes can be hard to lamb due to the tilted pelvis and extreme muscling which may result in cesars, however they are producing a terminal sire to go over maternal ewes, the beltex is fine boned with a narrow pelvis and lambs are born small, this combination actually produces easily lambed lambs out of mules and other maternal breeds, they are muscley but always remember that muscle gives but bone doesnt
The resulting offspring out of a beltex look like this
(http://medias.photodeck.com/032714bc-74f8-11e1-91b0-1d137154aa9d/4WH7108_large.jpg)
(http://robrattray.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sheep1.jpg)
These lambs are of a good shape and will grade out as to what the market will pay extra for, they arent even ugly lambs, so yes we may need muscley sheep like beltex in our commercial farming world to produce what the market is paying extra for, unless they started paying for extra bone and those big heads that we all love to eat so much ::) breeds like the beltex will be here to stay as terminal sires
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Double muscling seems to be the way some European breeders are keen to go, to the extent that Belgian Blues are routinely delivered by Caesarean. I think about as much of that concept as I do of the commercial turkey stags being unable to mate naturally due to the breadth of their breast.
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The lamb in the picture on your link will be someone's hope to make a good pedigree tup, this is part of the reason beltex and belgian blues have become as extreme as they have. However they do make excellent lambs when crossed with the mule etc.,
But I'd say these in the pictures below will have a Texel sire
In order to produce very good confirmation lambs out of leggy and milky maternal ewes you need a ram with some shape.
The resulting offspring out of a beltex look like this
(http://medias.photodeck.com/032714bc-74f8-11e1-91b0-1d137154aa9d/4WH7108_large.jpg)
(http://robrattray.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sheep1.jpg)
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I'm pretty sure we get paid 14 to 21.5 kg with no penalty here
Some buyers pay more for E & U grades but the two supermarkets I trade with both tell me that their preferred grade is R
The more extreme E grades get cut onto the supermarkets 'top range' lines (limited demand) and the R & O's into the 'normal' lines
The other consideration is do we get paid enough for the E grades to make their production worthwhile?
Are feed conversion rates higher for extreme grades? Are the extra lambing problems worth while?
Last week I sent 100 lambs (maternal lines) that killed at 19.6kg mostly R & O grades ---paid a flat rate for all of them , averaged £85.26/lamb which is more than the best E grades made at the local mart ---so where is the best profit margin?
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The lamb in the picture on your link will be someone's hope to make a good pedigree tup, this is part of the reason beltex and belgian blues have become as extreme as they have. However they do make excellent lambs when crossed with the mule etc.,
But I'd say these in the pictures below will have a Texel sire
In order to produce very good confirmation lambs out of leggy and milky maternal ewes you need a ram with some shape.
The resulting offspring out of a beltex look like this
(http://medias.photodeck.com/032714bc-74f8-11e1-91b0-1d137154aa9d/4WH7108_large.jpg)
(http://robrattray.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sheep1.jpg)
You are right they do look like texel lambs, but these lambs do have a beltex sire,
there are many photos on the internet and all of the beltex lambs I see go through market do look like these ones (and others on google)
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I quite like the xbreed lambs but i am just shocked how bad (IMO) the pure stock lamb looks
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It's rare to produce an E grade lamb (at the right weight) out of a mule, and the majority won't attain U. Generally the top grades need a bit more meat breed in them - so are likely to be the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the mules.
We start with mules, cross them to the Texel, that's our foundation breeding stock. From these we produce good fat lambs and next-generation breeding ewes. We may retain breeders from the next cross as well, but beyond that they may be getting too pure and start to get into difficult lambings / poor milkiness, etc.
In recent years we've used the Charollais to inject some easy lambing, finer skins, faster finishing and denser muscle. Superb (and succulent and tasty too) fat lambs, and the females make good breeders too.
Our grades, and the proportion of our lambs that hit the grades before being overweight, have improved considerably since using the Charollais.
The other consideration is do we get paid enough for the E grades to make their production worthwhile?
The bonuses vary from buyer to buyer and sometimes from scheme to scheme, but in general a top grade lamb attracts a bonus of 15ppk - so on 21kgs that's £3.15 extra. If a naturally-working tup can father 100 lambs a year and last 2-3 years, you can justify spending £600-£900 on him. We don't generally spend anything like that much, but now and again do buy a better tup and keep some of his daughters on.
Now look at semen production and other modern intrusive reproductive techniques, and work out the returns one tup can give and you can see how a good breeding tup might be worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Are feed conversion rates higher for extreme grades? Are the extra lambing problems worth while?
Beltex finish slowly, which can mean reaching the best grades overweight, which is a complete waste of money. However if you can keep the size down, you can hit the after-Christmas market with top grade light lambs, and then you really will make money.
I can't say we never get difficult lambings, of course, but by keeping tabs on what combinations give easy lambings and fast growth rates, versus those which give harder lambings and slower growth rates, we have considerably reduced the number of difficult lambings we have. We had an outstanding small Dutch Texel tup for 3 years; his lambs were small and squirted out easily, grew to great conformation at an appropriately small size, and he had a fine skin too, which both aids easy lambings and improves our fleeces :spin: ;)
The next DT was not such a success but we got two successive really good Texel tups - not overlarge and fine skinned - which have conferred similar characteristics to the initial DT.
Last year we tried a Beltex x Texel - his lambs will start coming next Thursday. They should be born small and will grow slower, but should make top grades albeit later in the season. Daughters should be milky.
Last week I sent 100 lambs (maternal lines) that killed at 19.6kg mostly R & O grades ---paid a flat rate for all of them , averaged £85.26/lamb which is more than the best E grades made at the local mart ---so where is the best profit margin?
Well, if we could all get £85 for all our 20kg R and O lambs, the bottom really would drop out of the extreme tup market!
I'd love to know where you were selling them! (Feel free to PM if you don't want to post - but of course I will understand if you don't want to share ;) )
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No secret--- RPF Ltd (many end up in Sainsburys)
I think Dunbia and others will have similar arrangements
I call and book in a mob for 10 days time, they quote a flat rate ex-farm gate and send a lorry to pick them up
Lots of people knock the large processors but these guys treat me well--- a few years back when the price tumbled between Xmas and March they guaranteed and paid a good premium---I think they paid me £3.80/kg all through that period when the live markets etc were getting 20% less
They also put a bit of cash into farm R&D which is handy
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We've sold through Dunbia in the past but mostly go to Woodhead (for Morrisons) or Vion for Asda and Tesco these days. (Used to be Welsh Country Foods.) They tell us the estimated bid price up front, so if we don't like it we don't send lambs. And we get good info back, including any vet lab details (whether or not it affected the price they paid.)
Usually deadweight is very good earlier in the season, sometimes we do better through the marts later on. But it's always a gamble going to the mart.
What sort of volume are you doing? We take batches of 20-25 to the local collection centre; they collect up a lorryload for whichever operation is moving lambs that day.
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Try to make a lorry load each time----that's about 150 . There are 3 or 4 of us within 15 miles so with 2 or 3 pick ups we can make a load
Last week I sent 100 & next week I will send another 150----try to get rid of the things before too many more hit the ground!
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The Beltex is, after all, only a Belgian offshoot of the Texel hence, I suppose, the passion for double muscling. There was a fashion for them in these parts a few years back but folks just got fed up with the lambing problems and many have returned to less extreme Suffolks.
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In the comments someone has asked/put is a landrace pig crossed with a charolais .. or a belgian blue..
His suggestion of a hint of squirrel is also spot on, especially in the face. Can't see the charollais in it at all.