The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Remy on July 09, 2015, 03:21:58 pm
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Before last year I have always used a purebred tup (Ryeland, Zwartbles, Gotland) on my ewes - some are purebred (Charollais, Zwartbles, Gotland, Herdwick) and the rest are mainly crossbred ewes. The resulting lambs have always been of a specific type.
A little story! Last year I got a Meatlinc x (think the cross was a Beulah speckle face x or a mule x). Anyway he was a superb stamp of a ram lamb (weighed 50kgs at 4 months old!) and caught my eye, which is why I bought him, as well as wanting to bring some new blood in and breed away a bit from the Ryeland type with my commercial cross ewes. After having him a week he got in with the ewes, and when we parted them he threw himself at a fence post and broke his upper foreleg just below the elbow joint. I was gutted and resigned myself to losing him :( . [size=78%]I had various bits of advice from people which included having him pts, bandaging and splinting, when his breeder said it had happened to one or two of theirs and if I leave him alone in a paddock and keep him quiet, he may come right after a while. I called the vet to get his opinion and he splinted the leg and said prognosis was probably poor, then after a week I found the splint broken in two and rubbing his leg so took it off and left him in a small paddock. Incredibly after two months you would not even know he had broken it - he was sound, the leg was straight, no sign of a wound - it was amazing.[/size]
He was such a mature looking ram lamb, that winter I put him in with 12 ewes (non commercial) just to see how he fared. These included Gotlands, Zwartbles and a Herdwick, along with a couple of small crossbred ewe lambs which I didn't think would take. He got every single ewe except one crossbred in lamb, most were twins.
Just before shearing time I noticed he had a bit of a swollen eye, which must have been the result of some head banging with my Ryeland tup. He seemed ok though and I kept an eye on him. Then the day after shearing, I found him dead in the field, with blood on his head - he must have had another session with the Ryeland and caught wrong compounding his original injury. I was pretty devastated after all he had come through! :'(
Anyway, the reason for this story is that I was so impressed with his progeny - they all had exactly the same stamp depending on the breed of the ewe (it was as if he had been purebred) - that I have got myself another couple of crossbred ram lambs - one is a Texel x Lleyn and the other is Texel x Suffolk, both again good looking strong tups. I've seen both mother and father.
I just wondered if anyone used crossbreds rams and your experiences with them?
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Top commercial breeders use - and sell - certain crosses, such as SufTex (Suffolk x Texel), Beltex x Charollais, and frequently Texel and Dutch Texel crosses with 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 Beltex or other Texel-type.
They'll do it a little more scientifically than you or I can manage, of course ;).
I've used a tup lamb I bred here, and have kept some of his progeny on. He was half Shetland and half <commercial mongrel> - his mum was a Charollais out of a Beltex x Swaley Mule.
Two of his ewe lambs out of Dutch Texel commercial shearlings are excellent and are staying on as commercial ewes. The DT cross male lambs all did well and were sold deadweight before Christmas, so finished nearly as fast and as well as any.
His progeny from my 'fleece sheep' were more varied, and at first I thought too varied. But I've got some lovely fleeces and all the males have shaped up well, given their breeding (Mums are Shetland crosses and Manxes) and would have sold well enough in the ring had I wanted to sell them that way. One went off fat late winter (his fleece wasn't special enough to warrant keeping him longer, and I wanted some hogget in the freezer before lambing) and was a very acceptable carcase for that sort of sheep.
He only gave me one ewe lamb from the primitives, and she'll not be bred from, she has an eye problem.
This year I've used a pure Shetland, just on my fleece sheep, and I am absolutely delighted with his offspring. There's not a lamb I'm not pleased with, except maybe the runt of one of the two sets of triplets. The problem he's given me is how to select who's staying when it comes to this time next year and I will want to keep all his daughters on!
So, on limited data, my own view is that you get a more predictable - and if you chose well, excellent - outcome from a purebred tup. But since we keep our own sheep for enjoyment as much as for a lamb crop, if you fancy trying these two, well - why not? The SufTex is not an unusual choice for a terminal sire, and if you are wanting some replacement ewes, then the Texel x Lleyn could give you some interesting girls.
Do let us know how they do!
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Isn't this just a variation of the sheep stratification system that's been used in the UK for centuries? Some of the rams have been given a new label and everyone claps their hands.
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I don't think it is, MF, no.
As I understand the stratification, the tups used at each level are pure breds.
Originally it went something like this:
Hill & moorland : breed hill ewes, pure for replacements and sale to other hill farms
Sell draft ewes at 2, 3 and 4 crop to upland farms
Upland : Buy draft hill ewes & gimmers
Put to Blue-faced Leicester or Border Leicester (or Wensleydale or Teeswater) tup for Mule, Masham or Half-bred ewe lambs
Sell Mule ewe lambs to lowland farms
Lowland : Buy mule gimmers, put to terminal sire (Suffolk, Texel, etc) for meat lambs
Some farms would do a bit of two or even three - for instance, on the moorland farm we bred our own Swales, put the older girls to the BFL for a Mule crop, kept a small flock of Mules ourselves, which were mostly kept 'in-bye' on less challenging ground, and were put to Texel and Beltex tups for a fat lamb crop.
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These days, the Texel x Mule gimmer is another crop, being sold from SDA-type land to better farms, as ewes which will produce a slightly better fat lamb than the first-cross Mule.
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Yes, but the basic principle is that you pick 'n' mix from sheep breeds to give you the optimum sheep for your land, your weather, your system and what you want to produce.
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Yes, but the basic principle is that you pick 'n' mix from sheep breeds to give you the optimum sheep for your land, your weather, your system and what you want to produce.
Totally, but it's generally the ewes which are crossbreeds and mongrels, not the tups - and there's a good reason for that ;)
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Suftex's account for 50% of all terminal sires used in NZ.
Also important to note that you can stabilise a cross breed.
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I personally am not keen on the overall concept as it generally involves grandmother-to-grandson or similar matings, which I wouldn't want to use in my own flock. There's still a lot find out about genetics - I had a long chat with a geneticist at the Royal Three Counties (she was judging pigs, so that's mainly what we discussed) and she convinced me that the wider the genetic base for a breed the better it was for its long-term survival.
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Pigs is a special case, I never got my head around it but it does seem to rely on 'line breeding' to a very large degree.
I don't think you'll find a great deal of line breeding in sheep. Very occasionally, daughters and/or granddaughters may get bred back to an exceptional tup, but it's the exception not the rule - in commercial breeds, anyway. (Rare breeds have their own issues and have to manage with what bloodlines remain.)
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If it goes right its line breeding if it goes wrong it's inbreeding...so the phrase goes.
Happens a lot in the horse world too. I dont see a problem long as its done with plenty of outcross blood, a keen knowledge of the bloodlines. Only done to consolidate certain traits off certain animals. Exceptional stock getters both male and female need only apply.
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Who knows what valuable genetic traits were lost from the culling that went on during the scrapie scheme ...?
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I'm of the opinion that a wider gene pool is preferable, so will be careful not to be doing any close breeding unless by accident! I will assess how the lambs turn out from these two, so long as I have a fair number of similar commercial types for market. I find it quite interesting to experiment with a few each year!
I've had some really interesting crosses from my Herdwick, and my Zwartbles ewes have produced some lovely lambs from the Meatlinc x.
So should the TexelxSuffolk produce the better market lamb?
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i have mostly texel crossed ewes and use a pedigree suffolk ram on them...people would buy ram lambs for breeding use straight from our yard, i have heard great reports about them from the people buying them, leaving a quicker growing, well built lambs
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We have used Sufftex tups on mules and texel (ish) ewes with good results. We are however leaning more now towards more pure bred tups, just because its easier to get your head around! They will be texels generally to get more white faces for market. However both sufftex and texel x lleyn are nice cro[size=78%]ssbreeeds.[/size]
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I confess that I do not understand the continued prevalence of Suffolks and latterly SufTexes.
Suffolks make heftier lambs, which is exactly what the market does not want. The biggest market, and the best prices per kilo, are for 'supermarket' and 'export' lambs, which are much smaller and lighter than anything a Suffolk would sire. Except maybe on a Shetland.
So I would be very glad to have the reasons for using Suffolk and Suftex tups explained to me!
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hopefully this poster is helpful for you :) .i find them extremely quick growing, suffolk X ewes make real good milkly mothers, ive had plenty of lambs go for export and had no problem with lambs getting good prices, how does the market not want them? suffolk lambs are well graded, i havent had to pull one lamb since ive changed to suffolk either (and ive tried alot of different breeds of ram)
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Thanks for that.
Here's how I think about it at the moment.
Heavy lambs fetch less per kilo than lighter lambs. A finished Dutch Texel or Charollais lamb might be 21kgs deadweight at 14 weeks old - and that is exactly what the supermarkets want. Any heavier and the price per kilo nosedives.
I regularly see lambs over 42kgs in the ring fetching less per head than lambs 36-40kgs - and that's because the largest market is the supermarket lamb.
When I look at primestock reports from our local mart, the top price per head for Suffolks is usually considerably less than the top price for Texels, and the ppk is also less - usually around 10% less, sometimes 20% less. And they'll have been heavier lambs too, and taken longer to grow. And had heavier mums taking more out of the ground.
I don't get it! ???
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Statistically a 3 way cross provides for the best hybrid vigour and usually optimum performance
The most popular Uk ewe is the mule (a cross bred) and traditionally this has been put to a 'pedigree' (=restricted genepool ) tup giving the end product , a fat lamb
If you have pedigree/purebred ewes you may well get advantage from using a crossbred tup to produce fat lambs
My limited experience suggests that the SufTex rams I have used have been vastly superior in terms of their progeny's growth, carcase and worm resistance
On the maternal side I have considerably more experience and can safely say that a crossbred ewe will almost always be better then a purebred (hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)
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The suftex should give good lambs also the the lleyn X texel good for first timers I presume slightly smaller head which should make for easier lambing which is what we all want :-)
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Very interesting post TimW.
(hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)
If you do find that reference regarding hybrid vigour in maternal, I would be most interested to read it. :eyelashes:
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I shall sing my usual song...
Head size is not the issue. Shoulder and backside size is the issue.
People think it must be heads because when there is a difficult birth, if the lamb has been coming head only or if it got stuck in the birth canal with the head in the canal and the shoulders failing to pass, then the head will have swollen because of the constriction behind it. It was the shoulders which caused the problem but the shepherd sees it as a big head.
The only time head size matters is with breeds that have horned lambs that have large horn buds at birth, such as the Exmoor Horn. Exmoor breeders aim for all twins, because a large single tup lamb is likely to have a head too big to be born, because of the size of the lamb plus its horn buds.
When selecting for easy lambing, here are some of the factors to include in your deliberations - my list from my experience :
- maternal effort - ladies who are 'too lazy to push' will exacerbate any lambing issues
- maternal pelvic size - primitive sheep often have wider pelvises than more modern breeds. Swaley Mules are very roomy, Hexham Blackie Mules considerably narrower.
- shoulder width of tup and of ewe. No-one pays you more money for width across the shoulders, so why would you want a lamb that's very wide across the shoulders. And yet, meaty types such as Texels can be so broad across the shoulders that you cannot deliver a lamb that's one front leg back. Note that shoulder width is not the same as heart room - a lamb can have plenty of width between the front legs and not have over-broad shoulders
- propensity to have single lambs - if you think you may have lambing issues, then twins is best, as singles are nearly always bigger
- width across the backside of tup and of ewe. Same argument as shoulder width except that you do get paid more for fat lambs with good backsides. So there is more desire for big-bottomed lambs and hence tups and ewes.
- ? lamb vigour. I'm not sure if anyone has confirmed whether lambs that are very vigorous at birth are more likely to be active during parturition - but I'd suspect so. And in any case, you want lambs that jump up and go round to the milk bar within minutes. Too many Texel type lambs get tired out by parturition and don't try hard enough to feed; BFL crosses too can be like this. I don't know about Suffolks, I've no firsthand experience of them.
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i havent had to pull one lamb since ive changed to suffolk either (and ive tried alot of different breeds of ram)
Really?
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really! have been real successful putting them to crosses! not one pulled! real happy , we used a hombred ram lamb, he lambed himself so we decided to retain him for breeding on the crosses
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I confess that I do not understand the continued prevalence of Suffolks and latterly SufTexes.
Suffolks make heftier lambs, which is exactly what the market does not want. The biggest market, and the best prices per kilo, are for 'supermarket' and 'export' lambs, which are much smaller and lighter than anything a Suffolk would sire. Except maybe on a Shetland.
So I would be very glad to have the reasons for using Suffolk and Suftex tups explained to me!
I agree with you about the price/kg, but as Suffolks grow faster than Texels then you can still get as much, or more for a Suff x lamb as for a Tex x of the same age.
However, I use a Suffolk ram because of the ease of lambing. Now that I only lamb about 2 dozen ewes, I am not sitting up all night for 3 weeks in case of a difficult lambing. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I never have to pull one out, but it's rare to have to help a ewe that's lambed before. And it's even rarer to lose a lamb due to lambing problems. Which is more than I can say from when I used a top Texel ram.
But to get back to the original question about using a cross bred ram - to me the main advantage is that you aren't having to wonder which of the ram's parents it's progeny will take after. If one of the parents is not a meat breed then the lambs, although they may look quite adequate, will not have as good a conformation as if the ram was of a pure bred terminal sire.
In my case, using a pure bred Suffolk means that all the lambs have a black face and look uniform when penned up for sale.
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Was at the Ireland Athenry sheep weekend (http://www.teagasc.ie/events/2015/20150620.asp (http://www.teagasc.ie/events/2015/20150620.asp)) a few weekends ago which had a few talks from irish commerical buyers through Bord Bia, and interestingly they are all focussing on uniformity in size and amount of fat- they don't want joints to vary by more than a few 100gs so they can be cut and prepacked by non butchers and sold to keep to a specific price. They are working to supply to European markets more than locally, but also want to increase people's interest in lamb. From memory, they wanted 1.5kg legs and small shoulders- their line for too muchfat/good/too little fat was a very small margin.
When I took my friend shopping for lamb, finding joints was almost impossible - couldn't find a whole leg for love nor money, and only 1/2 shoulders - not sure if thats chicken or egg from whats mentioned!
Is this how the UK mainland market works?
I have to admit the "plan" I have in my head for lamb would need a complete rehaul if this is where the future lies!! (although I cannot be the only person who wants a whole shoulder or a proper leg of lamb?!)
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Very interesting post TimW.
(hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)
If you do find that reference regarding hybrid vigour in maternal, I would be most interested to read it. :eyelashes:
Try 'Genetic improvement of cattle and sheep' Geoff Simm, yours for about £50 (may find one on ebay?)
Not light reading but lots of good info. and I think that's where I read up on this
Otherwise email someone at Eblex---they have good scientists/geneticists whose job it is to serve us---they are usually pretty patient with me and come up with an explanation in terms I can understand (just don't mention my name ---I think they curse me enough already)
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Ah well, I will experiment with my two, see what they produce. I have a range of crossbred and purebred ewes (Charollais), and it doesn't really matter too much on the outcome. Watch this space! :)
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We have used suffolk x charollais tups in the past - what we got was one suffolk lamb and one charollais lamb,we tend to have pure tups now
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When selecting for easy lambing, here are some of the factors to include in your deliberations - my list from my experience :
- maternal effort - ladies who are 'too lazy to push' will exacerbate any lambing issues
I wonder how much of that is due to a long final stage of labour if the lambs are big?
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I used a crossbred ram and all of the lambs came out with ALOT of variance,
not good when selling live in a market
They have to look good and look equal
As to the suffolks, they are always penalized in the market I sell in, usually a good 5-8 pence per kilo less if its a suffolk/southdown/hampshire or has a wooly/black face, they have really gone off down breeds,
the best prices per kilo are actually for lambs weighing from 32-36 kilo, as soon as they weigh more than 42 kilo the price per kilo plummets
Market last week had 33.5kg lambs selling at 185ppk but had 46kilo lambs selling at 152ppk, so only £8 difference for a lamb weighing 13 kilo less
When I sold my first lambs in June, my 38 kilo pen of lambs fetched the same amount as the 42 kilo lambs, as they fetched more per kilo