Author Topic: Thoughts to crossing a soay tup with a heb ewe? (Read 2306 times)

piggy · « **on:** July 19, 2011, 11:02:03 pm »

Hi

As anyone crossed a soay tup with a hedredian ewe?
I have a wonderful soay tup a real gent and a joy to own,i bought my soays last year just after they had weaned there lambs they came with a tup but he was related to some of them and wasnt very tame so he went,i then bought a new tup travelled a 6 hour round trip to get him and he is a real pleasure very friendly think he must have been shown at some point,he stayed in with the ewes as i have no other male company for him and he has proved his worth of my long journey,not only has he produced some cracking lambs he is a great guard dog! when the ewes first had there lambs i watched for hours to make sure all was ok and he didnt bully the lambs but they would all lay next him,even now the lambs are 3 months old if my 7 month old coille hops the 4ft fence hes straight after her till she jumps back out!
I have 5 heb ewes which i bought late last year but they came to me in lamb but thinking to this years tupping would it be ok to cross my tup with the hebs i really dont want another tup.

Fleecewife · « **Reply #1 on:** July 19, 2011, 11:53:21 pm »

Hi Piggy It's usually done the other way ie larger tup over smaller ewes, but would be fine with a Soay tup. The lambs would be a bit smaller than pure Heb, with a shorter fleece but otherwise fairly similar.

princesspiggy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 20, 2011, 02:15:39 pm »

i couldnt imagine alot of meat on them, our heb crosses never seemed that big or pretty either. id personally stick to purebreeds then ur not trying to sell skinny mongrels. just try it and see if u can sell them, but a pedigree costs the same to produce as a skinny xbred and will sell for a higher price, unless its a chunky xbred, which wud hold their price too.
we did it but wouldnt again.

Corrie Dhu · « **Reply #3 on:** July 21, 2011, 08:31:43 am »

If you just want lambs then its not going to be a problem, but it's a bit of a waste of the Hebs as they could produce much better lambs. Could you not borrow a tup from someone? A North Country Cheviot for instance would produce much better lambs but they should still lamb easily. I use an NCC on nearly all my Shetlands (100) and this year I put the last two hebs we have to him too.