The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: JHunter2013 on April 19, 2014, 07:06:55 pm
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Hiya! My husband and I are looking to start our own small scale pedigree flock. We've got 14 acres near Dumfries and barns. I'm a vet as well and have a lot of sheep experience (but on a large scale). So my question is this.. what do you recommend as a nice little venture? We want to try to at least break even (until we can get more land). We're trying to take into account the area we're in, and the small scale of land, as well as carcass quality, mothering, milk, easy of lambing etc.
So does anyone have any suggestions?
We've come up with a few breeds we were thinking of, but what do y'all think? Any to discredit or some new ones to consider?
*Clun Forest
*Border Leicester
*Cheviot
*Jacob
*Ryeland
*Zwartble
*Lleyn
Really looking forward to sharing and learning from everyone!
Cheers,
Jennifer
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I am no expert and I am sure many will comment, I can only speak from my own experience.I have kept Jacobs in the past and found them to be great mothers and milky and I had no lambing issues! Currently have Lleyns and Poll Dorsets and the Lleyns are better mothers and no problems lambing but I am in the South West and what works here may not work up there with you.
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my vet keeps lleyns. so they must be ok :eyelashes:
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:wave: i have mostly easycares and easycare cross i do well with them. also have a few pedigree charollais and beltex and last few pedigree lleyns .also recently bought a flock of blackies in lamb to the charollais . alot depends on land ,end goal , available time etc
i would try one or two different kinds first to see what suits best before committing . if its more commercial older draft blackies are a great start you can cover them with nearly any tup and get a good lamb for both jobs meat or breeding . my easycare x blackie mules are superb and about 3/4 of them shed there own wool :sheep: [size=78%] [/size]
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Lleyn are a decent sheep, but the breed is pretty commercially minded and I don't think you'd keep enough of them on 14ac to justify recording, which is how a lot are sold now.
It is quite hard to get into the money-go-round of pedigree sheep breeding (in that it is easy enough to buy expensive stock, but hard to sell them at much above meat price until you have built up your reputation over a number of years).
I wouldn't fall into the trap that having a pedigree stamp is an easy ticket to high prices for your stock or everybody would be doing it.
Why don't you get something that you like and suits your ground and have a go at producing store/fat lambs until you build up a reputation?
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the breed is pretty commercially minded and I don't think you'd keep enough of them on 14ac to justify recording, which is how a lot are sold now.
recording what - weights?
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what are you wanting as your end result are you wanting to produce meat or fleece or both, i dunno i love our lleyns and they ll live anywhere, but even on a registered level is there money to made, we tend to do store lambs, it suits us and i dont think we ve got enough of an eye in to finish them being on our 5th year keeping them, theres still alot to learn, im used to ponies, so this is very different lol
i dont know much about the other breeds, but i do rather like the look of the zwartbles and the ryland :)
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We ventured into sheep for the first time in 2012, with a small flock of Zwartbles ewe lambs, and another four (boys) of the same breed as store lambs. The girls have been exceptionally easy to look after so far and this year we bred our own lambs for the first time.
Only one of the ewes needed assistance (because she had twins coming together) - the others all got on and did it themselves with no help at all (outdoors). They've all been excellent mothers and are very milky (as they are a dairy breed). We didn't have any triplets ourselves this year but I know they are more than capable of raising triplets themselves due to their high milk yield. Just across the way there is a large flock of Zwartbles sheep that are kept as a dairy herd and that's going pretty well I hear!
The Zwartbles fleece is of very good quality for spinning (so I've heard, I don't spin so can't verify that) and the meat is lovely and lean and sweet. We sell half lambs to family and friends and they all come back for more!
Zwartbles are a large sheep but very friendly and docile. I'm only 5'3" and manage them all fairly well (although they do get a bit bargy at teatime so I have to warn my young kids to stand aside then).
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Hi Jennifer :wave: from just south of the Border. Commercial (but traditional) beef and sheep farmers, plus I have a small fleece flock on the side. :spin: :knit:
Lleyn ewes sell well at Carlisle, I don't know about Dumfries. We had a batch one year and they have done well. We even looked at using a Lleyn tup on some of our ewes. The only real criticism is the multiple births - but then they were pretty good at rearing triplets. ;) However, for us, as we mix the breeds in our commercials, the multiple births are a problem so we haven't bought any more Lleyns.
Cheviots are popular - but you'll be aware there are two distinct types? Hill and North Country. I think the NC is the larger type. Cheviot store lambs sell extremely well at Longtown every year - we always look and rarely buy because they are very expensive and sell in larger groups. When we do get a pen of 20 or so, they do really well, selling as prime hogg after Christmas.
Cheviot is also a really nice fibre for handspinning ;) :spin:. You've a Guild at Dumfries for a market... oh, and me :)
Zwartbles is okay for spinning but frankly it's nothing special. It has good colour, washes easily, it's a large fleece per sheep, and it doesn't felt, but it's a shortish staple and not soft.
Lleyn is supposed to be nice. I didn't spin back when we had purebred Lleyns, would love to try one now ;)
Border Leicester would be very interesting - superb fleece and I one I haven't managed to get some of yet :eyelashes: :innocent: - and is now on the RBST Watchlist in the Minority category. I've no idea how saleable they would be though. :thinking: Should be fine as a meat sheep, and the fleeces would certainly sell :spin: :excited:, but how big a market there is for breeding stock, I don't know.
Most handspinners, despite what you hear, do not queue up for a Jacob fleece. They can be very variable, shall we say ;). One of our neighbouring farmers still has Jacobs, and his mam used to spin, so she selects a nice fleece for me now and again ;). It's usually a crossbreed ;) They like their Jacobs as part of the commercial flock, and cross them to the Texel for a meat lamb. (And the black fleeces of this crossbreed can be very nice.) One of BH's rellies breeds Jacobs; I'm not sure they've found the pedigree market very easy to break into. From what they say, some markets have higher prices than others ;) - so I think they buy at St Boswell's and sell at Skipton, or something like that.
There are a fair few small Ryeland flocks around and nice fleeces will sell to handspinners. Again, breeding stock seems to sell ok at Carlisle. There are others on here know far more about Ryelands than I do so I won't say more than that!
Clun Forest I know nothing at all about - maybe they will have rarity value up here!
The other breed you may have thought about and rejected, or may not have thought of, is Teeswater. (There's a registered starter flock for sale in Marketplace right now as it happens.) Again, a lovely fleece for handspinners, and you can clip twice for two crops. I paid £30 for a Teeswater lamb's fleece a couple of years ago. On the RBST Watchlist (vulnerable category this year.) Crossed onto the Blackie or Swale you get a Masham - also a superb fleece for handspinners, and not so easy to source nice ones as complete fleeces. A touch of Teeswater is often lurking in the ancestry of a crossing Leicester (the type farmers buy to put on their Blackie and Swaley ewes to produce Scotch and North of England Mules) - the Teeswater is what gives the best face colour in the Mules ;) A big enough sheep for non-breeders to sell well as stores or fat. Very hard to find breeding stock for sale in the marts - which may mean there's no market or may mean you would get a reasonable price. ;) Oh - and they are very friendly, meltingly beautiful sheep. :hugsheep:. There was a pen of them at Woolfest last year and pretty much everyone fell in love with them :love: :sheep:
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Cheviots are popular - but you'll be aware there are two distinct types? Hill and North Country. I think the NC is the larger type. Cheviot store lambs sell extremely well at Longtown every year - we always look and rarely buy because they are very expensive and sell in larger groups. When we do get a pen of 20 or so, they do really well, selling as prime hogg after Christmas.
Cheviots are confusing. There are the North Country Cheviots and the South Country Cheviots.
Within the North Country Cheviot, there are then two types - what are just called North Country Cheviots (often known as Park type or Park Northies) in the flock book, and what are called the Hill North Country Cheviot (often known as Lairg Type, or Lairg Northies).
The Lairg Northies are MUCH more like the South Country Cheviot than the Park Northies.
And to confuse matters further, the South Country Cheviot, which came pretty close to being lost in foot and mouth, seems to be being rebranded as the Hill Cheviot (as opposed to the Hill North Country Cheviot).
Southies and Hill/Lairg Northies would pretty much suit the same sort of hill ground, and indeed look very similar to the unfamilar eye, but you would get more, faster growing lambs with better carcass quality (whilst still remembering that it is a hill breed) from a Hill/Lairg Northie.
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SteveHants is right (unsurprisingly ;)) that getting a name as a decent pedigree breeder takes ages, and you won't sell at pedigree prices until you do - though of course you'll buy at them. A good name will happen much faster in a breed that fewer people keep. So personally I'd avoid the big, commercial breeds.
But fundamentally, you need to choose something you like, and accept that you're not going to be producing much other than meat lambs for some time, plus possibly breeding females, if you pick a rare breed.
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one i fancied trying that gets good press was hampshire downs . going to try one or a newzeland suffolk on my older/lesser easycares this year . breed my best pure
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Thanks everyone! I think we've narrowed it down to the following;
Zwartble
Clun Forest
South Country Cheviot
From what I'm gathering, those three all produce pretty good fat lambs (yummy!) so that shouldn't be a problem. I know the Clun Forest isn't that big up around our area, so wondering if it's worth getting some up here or looking at the others, as they are far more common in this region.
Also, how do you go about selling the wool to hand spinners? Just tell you guys here? :P
And, should we consider getting a ram as well, or just think about AI/renting a ram? We've got a special little lamb, in the picture below, who is a hermaphrodite (vagina, enlarged clitoris and a full set of testicles), but she was my first ever pet lamb and will be staying as a companion (maybe a teaser if she'll mount??), so we would be able to keep a ram in theory. I don't think we'd start off with more than 10 ewes and just go from there. So would it be better to just go to market and get whatever is available to use for the first year or so, or think about getting a small pedigree flock and build up?
Thanks again! Really really getting excited :)
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No picture to oooh and ahhh over, I'm afraid.
Selling fleece - there's a Guild in Dumfries, meets in St Teresa's Church Hall on the second Saturday of every month. They're friendly helpful people :)
At first it might be best to make a personal contact with the Guild - they'll advise you on what makes a good handspinning fleece, and how to prepare one for sale, etc. Otherwise, yes, let us know about it here, and/or on Ravelry, or you can take 5 fleeces to sell to Woolfest at the end of June...
There's a brilliant website listing lots of links and info for fleece sellers and buyers here (http://www.woolsack.org/AssessFleece) - great pics of a super fleece for handspinners, almost falling apart, and then partway down the page links to the pdf leaflets produced by Wool Clip and hosted on YarnMaker website.
I think it probably would be worth buying some local sheep to 'get your hand in' - and most importantly, forge relationships with local sheep farmers who can help and advise you about marts and other local info. You can usually pick up a perfectly serviceable (ha ha) tup lamb in the fat ring who would give you a perfectly good fat lamb crop. And then you can put him in the fat again ;)
Then once you have your sheep setup honed you can start looking for your pedigree foundation flock.
Personally I have an antipathy towards AI in sheep, although we do use it in our cattle so I probably shouldn't feel that way!
Renting tups can be fraught - just what diseases is he bringing with him and from where? Buying an aged good pedigree tup might be a good way to start - he's proven but being sold as he'd be coming onto his daughters. We bought a pedigree Charollais tup for £450 who had been several thousand pounds as a shearling tup! Or you may find another local breeder happy to let you have the use of one of their tup lambs so they can see his offspring before they sell him as a proven shearling. (One of our local Blue-faced Leicester breeders does this - he only sells crossing Leicesters that are proven to sire well-marked Mule offspring. ;) So he can command high prices, because you know the tup is a proven breeder of good stock.)
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Hi
I keep a flock of pure Pedigree Lleyns and for me they are the ideal breed. Easy lambing, plenty of milk for their lambs and excellent mothers. Have you ever considered Zwarbles? I understand they are quite similar to the Lleyn
and are excellent mothers, lambing easily and also they have plenty of milk for their lambs. The carcases for Lleyns and Zawartbles are not very lean and are very tasty.
Hope this helps.
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Hello
We live in the Clun Forest area, so quite a few Clun sheep about here. We started with a couple of 2 to 3 day old cades that turned up in our fields and were not taken in by the farmer, we then decided that we wanted to keep sheep but pedigree was the way to go on a relatively small acreage. We liked the temperament of the Zwartbles sheep, having looked at lots of breeds at the Royal Welsh, and then found some for sale locally so got started with a pedigree flock. They are a lovely breed to own due to their friendly natures and as already said by smee the meat is excellent, they don't produce the best butchers carcase so you may be penalised at market, however they can be taken to a heavy weight without going overfat unlike many other breeds so one carcase can produce plenty of meat. Well marked good quality and well grown lambs can fetch very good prices at sales, so they always the opportunity of a few of the best breeding stock lambs making a good price for you if you have an MV accredited flock.
I spin and there is variation in the quality of the fleece, but am a bit surprised that Sally has found the fleece a has a short staple, nearly all of ours have a fairly long staple for a shortwool with a good crimp and have won and been placed in fleece classes against other breeds. Zwartbles wool definitely does felt but is a little slower to felt, it was a desired fleece by a local felting mill when it was operating.
We recently decided that we would start a native breed flock, we had to choose a breed that had MV accredited flocks due to keeping our Zs accredited so were fairly limited, this gave us both Cluns and Shropshires to choose from. Whilst Cluns should really have been the best option due to us being in the uplands of the Clun Forest in the end we chose Shropshires due to a more proactive breed society and the breed producing quickly and producing easily fattened lambs, they also have a good niche marked for grazing in trees. Clun lambs take longer to finish and our commercial farmer neighbour had stopped keeping them due to them having a narrower pelvis. However other local farmers still keep the breed, they also have a good soft fleece, although shorter staple than Zwartbles. The Shropshires have a good fleece too and the society is encouraging performance recording and hopefully the breed is developing to have a niche commercial future.
If you can find local flocks of the breeds you have shortlisted it would probably be worthwhile to arrange some flock visits to help you decide which breed would be most suited to you and your set up. There are plenty of Zwartbles breeders up in Scotland, I am not sure about Cluns though. I would also advise going to the breed sales to get an idea of the stock/type that does well.
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Blacksheep, I'd love to have a bit of fleece from you to try (happy to pay) - I base my comments on the 4 fleeces I get each year from the Zwartbles wethers at the Chariots of Fire Driving team. If they're not representative... :thinking: Maybe they get singed during those displays... :thinking: (just kidding! :D)
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Hi Sally I would be happy to send you some to try, a shearling fleece would probably be best, unfortunately I am not sure what they will be like this year with all the rain we have had, it affected the fleeces that we had a couple of years ago when we had a lot of spring/summer rain prior to shearing. Will see what we have left from last year. I am looking forward to trying our first Shropshire fleeces this shearing too :)
I wonder if they shear the driving team fleeces ( oh yes JHunter zwartbles are very versatile and can be trained in harness!!) more than once a year to keep them comfortable for the driving, as they are not a breed with a short staple, each sheep produces around 4kg + of fleece at shearing.
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I have bred pedigree zwatbles and yes great friendly sheep ,but not really for the fat market unless x too exspensive for 1 thing and if left entire the boys don't fatten easy as keep growing.Stock at markets is cheaper but breeders keep there best marked sheep and im amazed what rubbish people will buy at sales and still pay over prices.These sheep are best kept on good grass to do well,we have poor grazing and so deciced to sell as they can eat you out of house and home.A neibour has cluns but has a closed flock of not many ,don't think u will get up here.If ure going to be crossing don't see the point buying pedigree sheep to breed fat lambs.
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They definitely shear them once a year only, and yes, the fleeces are HUGE!
When I say short, I don't mean 2"- it's long enough to card but not really a combing length. Not particularly crimpy - not compared to a Shetland or a Blue-faced Leicester.
Please don't send me an entire fleece :o - I have SO many fleeces! (I am *way* past 'SABLE' - Stash Beyond All Reasonable Life Expectancy' :).) But I'd love a few hundred grammes, just to see ;)
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I have just bought a flock off pure bred zwarbles having had experience with some crosses etc.....I bought 3 ewes with lambs one with twin ewe lambs others with singles ewe and ram lamb. They are a good sheep to handle lamb easy good milky mothers.
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Yeah, I'm thinking we might get a few 'fat lambs' and breed from them to help us get started and then introduce a few pedigrees as we go on.
And I forgot to put the picture on! Here we go now :) This is Ali Baa Baa :)
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We even looked at using a Lleyn tup on some of our ewes. The only real criticism is the multiple births - but then they were pretty good at rearing triplets. ;) However, for us, as we mix the breeds in our commercials, the multiple births are a problem so we haven't bought any more Lleyns.
Sally - what's the issue of multiple births if they've got the milk and mothering instinct to cope with them? Also I'm not understanding the difference that crossing them makes here? ??? Thanks!
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I had some Zwartbles last year wich I crossed to a charolais tup alongside my shetlands :)
What I found were upsides
Very friendly and easy to move around
Pretty
Huge fleece for doing things with
Grew moderately fast
Had lots of milk
Had long sexy legs
What I found were downsides to me
Got fly strike when my other sheep didnt (not saying zwartbles do this, just mine did)
Needed assistance lambing when the shetlands didnt to the same tup...
They were daggier than my other sheep
I struggled shearing them due to size/weight/wool
I didnt get paid as much for the wool as I did my shetlands
They needed sooo much more feeding than my other sheep to keep on the body condition, so yes they were milky but high ouput + high input
I found the lambs grew legs legs and more legs before any body/carcass
So if you had really lush grass and accepted that they needed caking and a little tlc and most of your lamb with be legs, then yes they are lovely sheep :thumbsup:
I sold mine as they just really didnt fit in at all with my low input system
Good luck :) :) :)
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Yes like I said zwartbles are lovely but eat as much as 2 sheep maybe 3 to keep on condition and lambs bad to fatten due to them growing.1st crop fleece nice and long but after that it can be coarse especialy breeding females as they put all to the lambs and fleece is dull and much shorter.Expect to pay £150 min for ewes and these will be poor quality,£250 is a better average but breed sales can be upto £700.Meat is very lean with very little fat and not strong tasting.
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Yes like I said zwartbles are lovely but eat as much as 2 sheep maybe 3 to keep on condition and lambs bad to fatten due to them growing.1st crop fleece nice and long but after that it can be coarse especialy breeding females as they put all to the lambs and fleece is dull and much shorter.Expect to pay £150 min for ewes and these will be poor quality,£250 is a better average but breed sales can be upto £700.Meat is very lean with very little fat and not strong tasting.
This is exactly how I found mine, I was not expecting to have to feed them the amount they needed! in the end I decided that were just not suited to rough/conservation grazing and I couldn't justify running two flocks of sheep in order to feed these sheep so much in order to produce lambs made of legs :eyelashes:
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There is lot of variation within the breed with Zwartbles, there are some big tall types that will need a lot of feeding to maintain condition, however there are smaller more compact types that don't need the higher quantities of feed. Definitely worth visiting pedigree flocks before purchasing and finding out about the management of the flock to find what will suit your system.
The farmer/butcher I spoke to a few years back in Cornwall who had 200 ewes expected his to do off grass alone and to rear lambs with a big carcass. He chose this breed for the quality of the meat and hence the premium paid for it, he was supplying top restaurants in the southwest. If you have a small flock you would probably be best supplying to customers direct, but if you will be selling through the market check with your local market whether there will be buyers, in some areas butchers are seeking it out due to the larger carcase and feedback from their customers about the quality of the meat. We are at 1100ft on a low input farm so expect to supplementary feed, but are feeding the same to the Shropshires.
We get a decent price for our fleeces for a coloured fleece from the wool board, if you take into account that a Zwartbles sheep will produce a heavy fleece, twice the weight of many breeds, then the price per fleece rather than per kg is good, the better fleeces are sold for handspinning or felting.
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Good to know! I think we're really thinking hard about going with the Clun Forest. They're quite interesting, and a bit of a rarity up in these parts. But just to be sure, we're heading to the Lockerbie Mart tomorrow to see what it's all about and prices/conditions of others. Getting excited! I do love my sheep! <3
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Sally - what's the issue of multiple births if they've got the milk and mothering instinct to cope with them?
Smaller lambs take longer to fatten => more lambs around for longer eating more grass (so make less hay) and cake (costs money) (and yes they will need caking hereabouts, no ewe will finish triplets off grass alone on north Cumbrian SDA ground!), more meds (strong singles never get any meds, they'll be away off their mums at 4 months old), plus prices are higher earlier in the season so ppk will be less for lambs born and reared as triplets.
Also I'm not understanding the difference that crossing them makes here? ??? Thanks!
A 100% Lleyn ewe may have the milk and mothering to cope with rearing triplets. But the next generation, say Lleyn x Texel, might inherit the fecundity from the Lleyn but not the milkiness; Texels are not a very milky breed and most will struggle to rear three on our sort of ground. Plus the more the multiple births genes permeate the flock, the less early sales of spring lamb we will achieve, which means lower ppk overall, plus more meds for the lambs (as they'll be about longer and need worming, fluking, etc), so more work and more expense for each lamb sold.
On good rich southern grass it would be a different equation. But here, it doesn't work for us.
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Got you Sally - thanks for the reply :thumbsup: .
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I started in sheep by accident, I'm a horses person and we moved to a smallholding in Shropshire 10 years ago. Our grass is very lush (ex-dairy farm) and I was having trouble keeping on top of it so I wondered about either having a small flock of sheep or getting a farmer to graze some. Before I could decide, a friend of mine who's husband was a sheep farmer asked if I wanted some orphans! Well I couldn't refuse .. that is how I started, I knew nothing at all about sheep! The orphans, four ewes and two wethers, did well and another farmer friend said I ought to breed from the ewes as they were good samples. Oh dear, in for a penny in for a pound so I got myself a very cheap Ryeland ram and over the next couple of years got some fabulous cross lambs.
I then decided to enlarge the flock and was lucky enough to be offered five pedigree Charollais ewe lambs from a top breeder for a very cheap sum - as the ewes hadn't made market size at that time. I got some excellent lambs from my ewes.
After another year or so I thought I might like to add a bit of colour into my flock - this is when things got expensive! I chose Zwartbles and Gotlands (and even Herdwick) as I loved the look of them, and ended up buying a Zwartbles ram, and keeping a good quality home bred Gotland ram lamb to mate with the unrelated Gotlands. BUT even though I got some beautiful offspring, it wasn't so easy to sell them. As has been said, you do need to build up a reputation in the breed and one of the best ways to show off your stock is at a breed show, something I just didn't have the time for. The pedigrees usually won't compete with fat market lambs at livestock sales as the commercial crosses generally grow at a faster rate, so I ended up selling all the pedigree lambs at give away prices, and decided to concentrate on commercials.
I had a bad year a while back where I lost a few of the pedigrees at a great financial loss - it took a long while to recoup my losses! I still have my Zwartbles and Gotland ewes but sold the rams. I got some very interesting lambs though - I crossed a Herdwick with a Gotland and the fleece was amazing!
If you are set on having a pedigree flock good luck to you, but as said above, it will take some time to attain top prices for lambs. :sheep:
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Pedigree sheep for most a long term project and like a new car the moment you buy and they leave the breeder you can knock 25% or more of their worth
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I :love: my Coloured Ryelands. Docile, good doers, great mums, pretty easy lambing, good feet, lovely fleece, tasty lamb at 6 months old.
Downside - lots of fleece so you need to watch for strike.
Have become much more popular since we bought our first ones in 2007 ( coincidentally) so more showing classes for the breed, if you plan to show.
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I'm with Rosemary. I love :love: my Ryelands/coloured Ryelands. Too laid back to jump the fences. Easily bucket trained.
I spin their fleece too.
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We've decided to go with the Clun Forest :) Will be getting some later this year :)
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Lovely looking :sheep: . Best of luck with your new flock :thumbsup:
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good luck :thumbsup: