The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Bionic on May 22, 2016, 09:29:06 pm
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They had 3 of them at the Royal Welsh spring festival and they are every bit as lovely as they look in their pictures. I just wish I had taken some pictures of them myself.
Their fleece has a very long staple, about 12 inches in some cases. One in particular just looked like a fluffy cloud. The guy said it had been washed the previous day and they probably used a bit too much shampoo :-)
I would have loved to talk to him a bit more about them but unfortunately he wasn't particularly talkative. Perhaps it's just that it was near the end of a long couple if days.
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They sold at Kendal Rare Breed Sale at around £2000 for lambs with surrogate mule ewe!
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Strikes me as being a bit of a racket. But then I'm a miserable old bag and can't see why, with 56 British breeds, some in real danger of disappearing, we need to import these for the "novelty value".
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I don't think anyone is going to import them to commercially farm them, they are as you a say, a novelty, incredibly cute to look at, but that's about it!! They wont like british weather and ground conditions. A few people will try breeding them to make a fast buck but I cant see flocks of them popping up over the countryside!! Seriously gorgeous sheep to look at though!
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Well Bionic, the man was very chatty when we went over. My daughter thought the sheep were fab!
He said that they were very hardy and wintered out. Brought in a month before lambing. He had just sold 2 wethers for £700 as mowers. Ewes fetched in the region of £1500 each.
Auction of some stock this bank holiday Monday for anyone interested.
Gave us his auction schedule. I did explain that daughter would have to save a lot of her pennies to purchase one :P ::)
I quote from the schedule which lists each sheep individually, plus embryos and semen.
.... bid fast and bid last.
....flushed 4 times to average over 10 embryos per flush. She is a cash machine.
....she could pay a vacation or 2
.....etc etc
Many of the lambs are being sold with 'nanny goats' or recipient ewes.
Top quality, glossy schedule, lots of photos.
Now why Trish Farm would you think anyone is trying to make a quick buck. And Rosemary your view is a little negative. :P
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anyone remember the ostrich craze? and llamas? and alpacas?
The only commercial value (at those prices) in them is in being near the top of the pyramid scheme. If you want to pay a grand for a pet, that's fair enough I suppose, but there'll be people who get sucked into the whole "breeding them for breeding stock sales".... which will work for the first few I imagine.
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Their fleece has a very long staple, about 12 inches in some cases. One in particular just looked like a fluffy cloud. The guy said it had been washed the previous day and they probably used a bit too much shampoo :-)
Now why aren't owners of the Lincoln Longwool or the Cotswold doing that ....?
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Gorgeous sheep (lovely seeing then in the fleece) .... but totally agree with the pyramid commercialism of it all ........ Adam has a lot to answer for!
Hardy and wintered out .... well yes they are a mountain breed ... but in a dry cold mountain not a wet Welsh one!!
I'm a bit long in the tooth (broken mouthed too!!) but have seen too many of these bubble burst over the years .... after all who would have thought anyone would have paid a grand for a crossbred dog 20 years ago!!
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I'm not sure the fleece is going to be worth much though. Long and fluffy when shampoo'd and presumably blow dried if he'd only washed them the day before.
It didn't feel very soft. Posh carpet wool?
The lambs looked very cute though. :innocent:
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The sale is not far from here...may pop along for a look
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I'm not sure the fleece is going to be worth much though. Long and fluffy when shampoo'd and presumably blow dried if he'd only washed them the day before.
It didn't feel very soft. Posh carpet wool?
The lambs looked very cute though. :innocent:
Be an expensive jumper and are they actually enough over here to make a jumper :roflanim:
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From the limited experiences my pals have reported, the fleece has been mostly - but not all - fairly coarse.
It may be that, as with Scottish Blackface, some 1st clip fleeces are rather nice for a winter sweater (worn over something softer, perhaps - although I've had Hexham Blackie Hogg fleece that passed the skeinlet-in-my-bra test.). But it's not a fibre I'd buy without handling, personally.