The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Mrspie on February 15, 2016, 06:42:57 pm
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I am looking for 2 orphan ewe lambs, ideally Zwartbles, but any pure breed?
I have had a small flock of sheep in the past of various breeds, but im looking at starting my own small flock of purebreds. Starting with 2 orphan ewe lambs. Ive raised many orphan lambs over the years for various farmers. My smallholding is in surrey.I started out as a hobby with a few pets, but now Im interested in animals to breed for our own meat and also to sell to hopefully cover costs of some of the animals.
If anyone has any lambs or any contacts of anyone who has it would be greatly appreciated
Thanks ????
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I put a similar post on here last year as I was looking to adopt 2 orphaned ewe GFD's as pets/mowers. I wasn't going to breed from them though so 'poor' markings didn't matter to me, which they may to you if you are looking to breed for improving flock.
Someone on this forum very kindly PM'd me a few times and suggested that I contact the GFD breed society to locate local breeders who I could then contact personally. This proved a great help locating breeders but sadly, no one that I contacted ever got back to me so I never did manage to get any lambs. It may just be that they didn't have orphans or were just too busy to reply but you might have better luck via this method with your Z's. Some of the breeders have Facebook pages also if this is helpful for you to know. Good luck.
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Hello :wave:
Where in Surrey are you? I'm in Surrey too :)
Do they have to be purebred? Would you not be happy with ewe lambs if they are of good quality but cross bred? I may have something of interest soon.
Pm me if you want :)
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Thank very much for the info! I'm new on here and am still trying to get the hang of things! ????
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You may find it hard to find orphan ewes that are correctly marked/good enough for breeding. I have lambed on farms where any orphan ewe lambs would be adopted on to singles/still births before ram lambs.
Idea being the ewes would be more likely to be kept on for breeding so needed to be raised by sheep. The cade lambs would always go for the freezer/mart and so weathers were preferable.
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You may find it hard to find orphan ewes that are correctly marked/good enough for breeding. I have lambed on farms where any orphan ewe lambs would be adopted on to singles/still births before ram lambs.
Idea being the ewes would be more likely to be kept on for breeding so needed to be raised by sheep. The cade lambs would always go for the freezer/mart and so weathers were preferable.
I've never heard of that before, that's very interesting.. I've always taken the odd lamb out off to leave her with two matching. Got quite a few orphan ewes in my flock as many of us do,it's the easiest way to start a flock for some. I can't see a difference in them providing they are reared well and have no set backs, only thing to say that they were orphaned is the friendly faces who come for a head scratch or knock you flying for a bucket of food!
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You may find it hard to find orphan ewes that are correctly marked/good enough for breeding. I have lambed on farms where any orphan ewe lambs would be adopted on to singles/still births before ram lambs.
Idea being the ewes would be more likely to be kept on for breeding so needed to be raised by sheep. The cade lambs would always go for the freezer/mart and so weathers were preferable.
I've never heard of that before, that's very interesting.. I've always taken the odd lamb out off to leave her with two matching. Got quite a few orphan ewes in my flock as many of us do,it's the easiest way to start a flock for some. I can't see a difference in them providing they are reared well and have no set backs, only thing to say that they were orphaned is the friendly faces who come for a head scratch or knock you flying for a bucket of food!
I think the reasoning was that the cades were too friendly so didn't work with the dog as well - these were large units though rather than smaller holders/ rarer breeds
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Makes sense I suppose :)
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These people will have some..... http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/114386853/2-young-zwartbles-ewes-for-pets-and-new-cades-avail-soon.html?link=%2Fadverts%2Flist%3Fkeyword%3Dzwartbles%2Bcade%2Blambs (http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/114386853/2-young-zwartbles-ewes-for-pets-and-new-cades-avail-soon.html?link=%2Fadverts%2Flist%3Fkeyword%3Dzwartbles%2Bcade%2Blambs)
I would get in touch with the zwartbles society though they may be able to help, here is a link for you
http://www.zwartbles.org/ (http://www.zwartbles.org/) There is also a twitter page for zwartbles ireland too if you're interested? They may know some people which can help you find what you're looking for. All the best and do keep us updated?