The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: crobertson on September 15, 2015, 08:53:34 am
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Just looking for some advice regarding what tup to use on ewe lambs ?
We have 6, good sized, texel ewe lambs which we intended on putting a tup to this year (they are a good size / well developed). What breed of ram would be best ???
I wanted to avoid bigger breeds such as texels, suffolks due to the possible lambing difficulties for ewe lambs. I was advised by a friend to go for a charollais (what they use) but wondered if there were any other easy lambing breeds - I quite like lleyns but have no experience with them.
These are our first ewe lambs but we have lambed for others a lot.
Thanks in advance !!!
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A Down breed is the traditional choice for easy lambing with robust lambs and good conformation.
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I lamb ewe lambs within my commercial flock every year with good results :wave:
This year I have 50 texel cross ewe lambs to tup, they are all going to my charmoise rams for easy lambing, hardy lambs that produce a fantastic carcass when grown.
Last year I put my welsh mule ewe lambs, charollais cross and shetland cross ewe lambs to the charmoise ram with very good results, I didnt have to pull a single one and they all grew very well on the grass even though it was poor over the dry summer
I sold/hire out some charmoise tups this year to go on to ewe lambs (and ewes), including texel cross ewe lambs, the previous tups used on my ram customers ewe lambs and ewes this year were all down breeds (funnily enough) including 2 using southdown rams, poll dorset, suffolk and oxford down rams
They were all seeking a hardier lamb, that was easier born and ended up looking like a texely cross lamb when sold live with no wool on the head without the need to creep when the grass dried off in the summer
If I couldn't get hold of a charmoise (likely scenario as the demand has been big for them this year) I would use something like a small charollais, berrichon, or if you dont mind what the lambs turn out like and just want good live lambs a maternal breed such as a lleyn would work just fine! or even a smaller breed for teeny lambs such as a shetland or similar would work
Good luck :thumbsup:
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P.S
I also know of small beltex rams and beltex cross charollais rams being used with good effect :thumbsup:
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I would suggest Lleyn. I have a friend who crossed Lleyn to texel ewes and the lambs were a decent size and were beautiful and had very good confirmation.
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Are you likely to keep any of the resulting ewe lambs for breeders? If so, that might affect your choice of tup breed.
Whereabouts are you? If in t'South of England, Charollais would be fine. If somewhere colder/wetter, and lambing outdoors, choose a Charollais tup with wool on his head; the very bare tups beget very bare lambs, and if they're born outside on a cold wet night, they may not make it. (Although they are very active lambs, and usually get around to the milk bar very promptly.)
Lleyn would be easy lambing, I'd think, as they have less backside than most breeds. If you would be keeping females, I'll add that as replacement ewes, I only have one criticism of Lleyn crosses, and that's that they have too many lambs. But if you're somewhere warm with good grass, I'm told that's not an issue as they can rear three on good grass. They don't work well hereabouts, our ground's not good enough to rear three on grass, Lleyn or not.
For lambing Texel type hoggs, I would say that the most important thing is lamb vigour. You need lambs that will jump up and find the milk bar, no matter how silly the mother is being.
To which end, my two recommendations are Charollais and Shetland.
Shetland cross lambs grow well, and are very saleable. The females are good breeding sheep, and the males will sell well as late season lambs, or as stores, because they'll likely be white and look more-or-less like Texels.
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We never tup our texel ewe lambs, preferring to wait until they are bigger as shearings (we think teenage pregnancies!!). We use a Lleyn tup on the shearings to great effect- much narrower shoulders for easy lambing,the lambs are born knowing what to do and jump up and suckle - ideal for first time mothers who are a bit clueless. We had far too many diffcult births with texel shearings to a texel tup and the thought of a texel ewe lamb giving birth is worrying, although obviously some do.
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Thanks to everyone for the replies !
But yes [member=10279]Old Shep[/member] that is exactly what we decided last night. We are going to leave them until next year and tup them as shearlings when they have matured a bit and we actuallly decided we would use a Lleyn tup too ! This is what we originally planned and prefer to do, it just seemed that we were more of the minority not tupping ewe lambs.
Thanks again.
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it just seemed that we were more of the minority not tupping ewe lambs.
Tupping ewe lambs simply wasn't done until recent years and has maybe trickled down from the commercial flocks that see it as a way to get an additional crop of lambs before the ewes are cast to farms on kinder ground after three or four lambings. The only local farmer I know that does this lambs inside and is set up for a lot of bottle feeding because he gets fed up with keeping the dams in adopters for days on end and still having them refuse their lambs (this is with Welsh Mules, usually easy to lamb and the best of mothers).
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Well, maybe he was before his time but my grandfather did and he has been dead 32 years so I suppose its what you mean by recent!
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Thanks to everyone for the replies !
Bit just seemed that we were more of the minority not tupping ewe lambs.
Thanks again.
Don't be afraid of being in the minority ;)
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it just seemed that we were more of the minority not tupping ewe lambs.
Tupping ewe lambs simply wasn't done until recent years and has maybe trickled down from the commercial flocks that see it as a way to get an additional crop of lambs before the ewes are cast to farms on kinder ground after three or four lambings. The only local farmer I know that does this lambs inside and is set up for a lot of bottle feeding because he gets fed up with keeping the dams in adopters for days on end and still having them refuse their lambs (this is with Welsh Mules, usually easy to lamb and the best of mothers).
Actually myself and others I know of who breed ewe lambs, do it not only to get another crop of lambs, but ewe lambs bred as ewe lambs make much better mothers as shearlings, this is proved time and time again as the ewe lambs which don't take to the ram and then are over wintered and lambed down as shearlings are easy to compare to the ones which did lamb as ewe lambs
Where does it say this was only done in recent years? would be interesting to read :thinking:
As if it is true that it was only done in recent years, then it must be due to the breeds progressing and maturing earlier these days and being able to be tupped much more successfully than compared with when they were just overwintered, or maybe more hill breeds being kept in a lowland environment than they used to be?
After weighing all of my ewe lambs a few weeks ago, the welsh mules (and others) which lambed had the same average weight as the ones which did not lamb in the spring, with actually some of the biggest ones having lambed, would be very interesting doing an in depth study on the lifetime of ewes lambed as ewe lambs compared to ones which didn't, although I think a study of this kind may have already been carried out, will have to do some googling!
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I lamb ewe lambs doesn't really affect there growth if cared for properly as said previously make better mothers as shearlings. An obviously you have an extra lamb from a ewe
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Actually myself and others I know of who breed ewe lambs, do it not only to get another crop of lambs, but ewe lambs bred as ewe lambs make much better mothers as shearlings, this is proved time and time again as the ewe lambs which don't take to the ram and then are over wintered and lambed down as shearlings are easy to compare to the ones which did lamb as ewe lambs
As if it is true that it was only done in recent years, then it must be due to the breeds progressing and maturing earlier these days and being able to be tupped much more successfully than compared with when they were just overwintered, or maybe more hill breeds being kept in a lowland environment than they used to be?
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I and most of the other farmers around here aim for zero mismothering which seems to happen when the first lambing is when they're fully grown and mature. One year my neighbour's Badger Face tup got in with his ewe lambs. When we compared notes we found those ewe lambs (on almost identical ground and management) were 10% smaller at maturity and produced two to three crops less lambs than ours.
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Almost identical is often completely different though MF, one missed worm treatment or poorly selected treatment could explain the difference, different grass etc.
The next obvious point is did he manage his ewe lambs properly? Were they tupped at the right weight, fed the right amount, allowed to rear only one lamb, weaned at 10-11 weeks etc or did he allow them to get in lamb too light, just chucked them in with the ewes to be out competed, in effect under nourished them and expected them to milk for 16 weeks through the summer and grow to boot?
With ewe lambs if you are going to do it do it you must do it properly, comparing notes with unplanned or miss-managed ewe lambs in a different flock would likely show a weight difference... unless your stockmanship is far worse than I imagine it to be! ;)
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I and most of the other farmers around here aim for zero mismothering which seems to happen when the first lambing is when they're fully grown and mature. One year my neighbour's Badger Face tup got in with his ewe lambs. When we compared notes we found those ewe lambs (on almost identical ground and management) were 10% smaller at maturity and produced two to three crops less lambs than ours.
That is very interesting, what breeds where the ewe lambs?
did the notes record from when both sets of ewe lambs turned one year old (at lambing or not in the case of the dry ones) up until they left the flock as culls/or died?
I would not want to run in lamb hoggs on identical management to dry hoggs as effectively they are in lamb ewes and should be treated as such, I would never expect in lamb ewe lambs to do better or as good as dry ones if they were treated exactly the same
So if your comparison was run on the fact the two groups were run identically, then I am not surprised the ones which lambed were 10% smaller
My dry hoggs get poorer grazing throughout the winter, with only a small bit of dry hay if it snows
My in lamb ones get the slightly better grazing alongside the in lamb ewes, also they will get haylage a week or so pre lambing with the in lamb ewes, so as they are in lamb they need to be treated the same as lambing down ewes, and not the same as the empty dry hoggs would be treated
I and others in my area also aim for zero mis mothering, if any ewe mis-mothered whether she be a ewe lamb or not she is culled out of the flock, so I wonder if by doing this, we have produced a ewe lamb that is a better mother hence why we find our ewe lambs lambed down as ewe lambs make better mothers as shearlings, perhaps it is due to the selection when lambing as a ewe lamb
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What does everyone here mean by mis-mothering, sheep terminology being as localised as it is better check. I call a ewe stealing a lamb, a ewe losing her lamb to a lamb thief +/- rejecting it mis-mothering.
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What does everyone here mean by mis-mothering, sheep terminology being as localised as it is better check. I call a ewe stealing a lamb, a ewe losing her lamb to a lamb thief +/- rejecting it mis-mothering.
Mis mothering = rejecting lamb, not licking the lamb after birth, rejecting one lamb of twins, liking lamb but not feeding lamb, lambing and then sodding off, losing a lamb to a lamb thief but then not taking it back etc
And then I suppose the resulting lamb from all of the above offenders is called a mis-mothered lamb
I have not had a single maternal bred ewe lamb mis mother her lambs as of yet, however this year I had a few of my charollais cross ewe lambs mis mother,
I bought them all as young ewe lambs for £50, they grew very big and broad so put them to the ram, three of them mis-mothered the lambs, they went off to the market 2 weeks later, I thought they would go as culls but the market sold them all as fat hoggets for £85 and the lambs sold as fat in june/july after being given to adult ewes to rear, cant really complain about that :thumbsup:
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My thoughts on lambing ewe lambs -
If done properly it doesn't effect their growth.
Less chance of having a fat shearling that can't get in lamb.
Make better mothers than shearlings lambing for the first time.
More likely to have a single and so be on their second lambing when they have to deal with twins, rather than first!
It's another lamb and the ewe isn't eating grass for almost 2 years without doing anything useful!
Exposes poor maternal instinct.
If using the right tup, no more lambing issues than any other ewe.
The ewe freaking out is related to being a first time lamber and NOT due to age (they are sheep not people!).
If you have to pull one be very calm and stick the lamb by her face for a bit before you walk away. Hold her till she licks it.
Watch they don't get too fat before lambing if they are having a single.
Don't believe all of the experts on lambing ewe lambs who don't lamb ewe lambs (if that makes sense!).
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I can't see the point in arguing whether to tup ewe lambs or not without naming the breed you are talking about! We wouldn't be too concerned if the tup got to some Mule ewe lambs, but if a texel tup got to a texel ewe lamb we would not look forward to the lambing! Also it depends where you are in the country, how high up you are and how much grass available, and whether you lamb indoors or out.
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Old Shep agree completely we could never tup ewe lambs.
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I think any maternal breed should be able to do it, if they are grown on well enough. You're right, the tup is key (and the breeding of the ewe lamb obviously, in terms of how 'well' it's bred for the task in hand).
With regard to geographical location, temp etc. I don't understand how a shearling lambing for the first time, is automatically meant to make a better mother than a ewe lamb doing it?
The only consideration I guess which could be effected by location etc, would be growing the ewe lamb on whilst her feeding a lamb if you had really poor ground. . . . but then the ewe lamb probably wouldn't make tupping weight in time anyway.
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If a ewe lamb is in lamb she is still growing herself and her lambs so needs really good nutrition, whereas a shearing is mostly grown so only has to "grow" her lambs?
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Grass availability I can understand as a factor, all farms are different/differently managed, height shouldn't stop you nor should lambing out, I have tups sold to people lambing out and lambing very high for ewe lambs