[trefnantbach]

has anyone got any experience of crosssing soays with other breeds. We aquired two soay ewes from a neighbour desperate to get rid of them and decided to let the charollais ram that we borrowed for our lowland crosses to run with the soays. The result were a pair of easy-lambed twins each which, although very small at birth are growing at a phenomenal rate and are hardly distinguishaable from our lowland cross lambs. I reckon they'l be ready for slaughter later this year and am excited at the prospect. I am now considering letting the soay ram that we are about to aquire to run with our lowland ewes especially for the easy lambing, good mothering characteristics.
Any thoughts?

[Fleecewife]

The advantage of running a Soay ewe with a larger commercial tup is her small size with greater stocking density and lower feed inputs, whilst producing quick-growing lambs, as you have found.  The primitives tend to have a much larger pelvis compared with their size than other breeds, but still you need to watch not to use too large a tup.  It would be interesting to know how cross-bred daughters from a commercial dam would perform - would they have the Soay good mothering without themselves being reared by a Soay ewe.  One thing is for sure and that is that the meat of cross-bred primitives keeps a lot of the low fat, finely fleshed and superior taste qualities of their primitive parent. However, it's usual to do the cross the other way to how you propose ie use a commercial tup on primitive ewes.  I suppose the underlying question is - is a ewes parenting ability learned from her dam or is it innate?

[trefnantbach]

All of our ewe were mated with a charollais or texel ram but the only ones to lamb unaided were the soays - due o large pelvis relative to their size as you pointed out. This is that we are after - very easy unaided lambing being the norm not the exception! I reckon that all the ewes that struggled and needed assistance to give birth to charollais sired lambs this year would find it easy if they had been mated with a soay. Therefore we are going to experiment with a soay ram this autumn. I dont know if there is a real issue with the mothering qualities of your commercial ewes, it is the ease of lambing that I want  to improve - having said that the soays udders are impressive - down to her knees! and gets in the way of walking and urinating! so they must be giving their lambs a head start and their fantastic milk production must make a big contribution to the lamb's rapid growth. Eventhough they are tiny when born, they catch up very quickly. I'll keep you informed.

[Fleecewife]

Yes please do keep us informed and the Soay Sheep Society would be interested to hear how you get on too 

[egglady]

one of our shetland tup lambs is going to jacob ewes later this year - anyone got any experiences of this mix to share?

and also, could we put a shetland tup to soay ewes without causing too big a lamb for the soays to deliver does anyone know?

thanks

[Fleecewife]

Shet x Jacob you will get black lambs (Jacobs are dominant black), sometimes with some white freckles, better (crimpier) fleece than Jacob.  Meat size is big like the Jacob, gigot not so long, taste excellent. Males should be horned but I would expect that 50% ewe lambs will be horned, 50% polled.

Shet x Soay is no problem as the Shetland is small boned with a neat head.  Lambs will probably be white with some brown or fawn markings, if the tup is white, but coloured if he is coloured, fleece coarser than Shetland, longer than Soay.  Lambs will grow to bigger than the Soay, probably closer in size to the Shetland.  We have only done this cross once - in the other direction, so Soay x Shet, ewe lamb (white) grew to same size as a Shet ewe - however, I heard that this year she lambed to a commercial tup (don't know what breed) and lost a huge breech tup lamb but is rearing the tiny ewe twin plus a fostered mule lamb. She has previously lambed twice to a Heb tup with no probs.

I feel that it is always better to put first time lambers to their own breed, before trying with a tup of a larger breed.

one of our shetland tup lambs is going to jacob ewes later this year - anyone got any experiences of this mix to share?

and also, could we put a shetland tup to soay ewes without causing too big a lamb for the soays to deliver does anyone know?

thanks

[Anke]

I have used a shetland tup on commercial cross ewes (sfflk/txl, beltex/tex and also my five shetland/txl crosses), and have found that they are all easy lambers, lambs are larger than pure shetlands at birth and grow faster, but the 3/4 shetland ones are slower growing than the 1/2 shetland ones. All make heavy light lambs (about 35kgs) in Nov, for our light lambs sales.

One thing you might have to watch is that your Soay ewes may be quite worn out after feeding large lambs, so give them some tlc after weaning and before the next tupping.

Planning to try a Lleyn tup (and some Lleyn ewes too) this year, and only breed my pedigree shetlands to the shetland boy.