[SallyintNorth]

An interesting subthread started under 'Can you eat old sheep' which I thought warranted its own thread.

Pick up the start here:

http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=17864.msg168791#msg168791

I know a Lakeland farmer who runs Herdwicks on the Fells, they have a single lamb each year and I think he said he'd had one still producing and rearing her annual lamb at 17 years old.  He had a one aged 13 when he was telling me this, and expected most of them to get to 9 no bother.

Fleecewife talked about commercial farming being different to smallholding / hobby farming when it comes to culling and she's right.  Around these parts, hill farms cull ewes with bad udders and may cull ewes who've lost teeth or may sell them with or without lambs as 'correct below'.  The majority of hill farms will sell draft (that is, sell as fit for breeding on easier farms, 'correct above and below', ie, full mouth and two good quarters) ewes as one of the main 'crops' of the farm.  Depending on the farm and the system they may be sold as young as 1-crop or 2-crop, more common is to draft at 3-crop or 4-crop but some will draft 5- and 6-crop ewes who can still do a good job for a year or two, maybe longer, on easier ground.

A lot of startup farmers get their start with these old gals.  They'll buy the best tup they can afford (usually an unproven tup lamb or an aged tup being sold only because he's about to be working on his own daughters) and then spend the rest of what they've got on old draft ewes from a really good farm.  Put the old biddies to the new tup, the female offspring are then the foundations of the new flock.  The old biddies may be able to do the same again, or may be fed and sold 'in the fat', usually for about the same as was paid for them.

On the hill farm I was on, our Swaledale girls were not tupped as lambs and were put to the Swale as shearlings so that their first lambing was as easy as possible for them.  Thereafter the economics meant it was more profitable to put our own Swaley girls to the Blue-faced Leicester to produce sought-after hill-bred North Country Mule ewe lambs (the wethers being sold in the store to farmers with more grass than us to finish for Christmas or in the New Year) and buy in any additional breeding Swale ewes either as maiden shearlings or as 1- or 2-crop drafts from a harder farm than ours.  Whether home-bred or bought-in, on our farm they'd be drafted at 3- or 4-crop when they were still worth a bit of money as breeders for a more 'in-bye' farm.  We found if we kept them on, they probably could have a 5th crop ok with us but they'd not be fit to breed again, and our old Swales had very little value as feeding or fat sheep, so it was better all round to draft at 4-crop.  On a softer farm they may be able to have 2 or even 3 more crops, and if they just had 1 or maybe 2 more crops they wouldn't lose so much condition that they'd have practically no value in the fat.

Other factors affecting how many crops a ewe could have included what tups were used.  Draft Swales are worth more if they are 'Uncrossed', which means bred only to the Swale, because that's an easier lamb for a Swale to produce than a Mule or Texel cross, so it takes less out of her and she'll be able to produce more crops for her new owner.

[shearling]

Thats really interesting. Our 3 Portland ewes born in 2005 had three healthy rams this year (their first crop a bit late, but they were new to us) the three ewes born in 2002 (all correct upper and lower -2 being mothers of the 2005 ewes, the other had a ram. This was their only crop, despite a hard working ram (shearling) who covered all the ewes lots of times. They are getting a second chance this year but we are also introducing two new shearling ewes and no lambs twice in a row = pot.

[lachlanandmarcus]

We bought our original 6 Shetlands in-lamb, aged 18 months (1) but the rest 3 or 4 years old - drafted to us I guess!

Our ram we acquired from our vet, noone knows how old he is (!) but he is a gentle and wary rather than pushy unregistered white Shetland chap with ever more splendid horns! He never seems very interested in the girls but they mysteriously all produce lambs the following April :-))

All of our lambs have been Shetland-Shetland pure tho I have thought about using a North Country Cheviot ram as there is a market for Shetland - NCC crosses. But i think I will stick to the pure bred as they lamb sooo easily (40-ish lambs to date and no interventions needed for any even tho 20+ were first time mums!)

BTW Curly ram will need a new home for 2012 tupping as I have run out of unrelated ewes after this year - let me know if you are interested in him (he would only be nominal ££) . Not one of the ewes he has tupped for us has failed to produce a lamb, and all but one were taken on the first cycle (and the only one who didnt took on second cycle and she had been barren the year before when sold to us as in-lamb so Curly outperformed the seller's ram!). About half the ewes have singles and half twins to him, even when most of the ewes are first time mums.

Of the original 6 ewes, 4 went off for the chop last week as they were 7 and had some reason or other as well as age why I wouldnt want to breed from them again. They are the first females I have sent (the others have been boys for meat which was easier to face) The other two old ewes are healthy, one will probably go off next year but the last one is the head of the herd and so she is going to live out her days here telling all the other girls that they are doing everything wrong!

So I guess I have kind of come to the conclusion that about 7-8 is old enough for our exposed bleak farm, with the weather straight off the Cairngorms and little natural shelter.

[VSS]

Sally,

Thats just what we did when we were starting out. We had the bare bones of a flock with five ewes but needed more on 22 acres. We bought 50 draft ewes for a fiver each (sheep were cheaper then) and used a ram lamb that we already had on them. We sold most of them as couples, but kept back one of two of the best. At various times when we have wanted to increase the flock we bought in draft ewes from elsewhere to get the numbers up at a low price. It worked very well in the days of the ewe premium as you paid peanuts for the ewe, got iro £20 each premium and the value of any lambs she had, and when you sold her, she was worth the same as you paid.

It doesn't work so well now though. It is inevitable if you run  flock of elderly ewes that some of them are going to turn up their toes. When it costs you £40 to have then collected it knocks the economics on the head.

We had a mass clear out one autumn and got rid of all our brokers - half the flock went. We kept all our ewe lambs that year. Now we have things on an even keel and replace around a fifth of the flock each year.

[mmu]

This is a very interesting thread.  Now can anyone tell me where the term "feeding ewes" comes from, as I hadn't heard it before I came to Scotland 20 odd years ago.  Also, in Sussex the term cast was used when an animal was off its legs (for good) but here it seems to refer to anything a bit past it!  Any ideas, anyone?

[SallyintNorth]

From the Cumbria / Northumberland Farmers' Dictionary ( ) :

'Feeding' ewes and cows are animals no longer / not suitable for breeding which would benefit from some feeding up before being slaughtered.

'Cast' can mean off its legs, especially for horses ('cast in his box' means he got stuck in his stable, unable to rise - often simply due to having insufficient space to get up.)  'Cast' sheep (usually ewes) and cows are animals no longer suitable for breeding; they may be fit and being sold for slaughter or may need further feeding up so would be sold as feeding ewes / cows.

[mmu]

Thanks for that SallyintNorth, I was familiar with horses cast in their box, indeed I knew a stallion who made a habit of it!  But I had not heard of feeding ewes before we came here.
I think that's the kind of thing that makes different places interesting - once you get used to it!

[Anke]

I have successfully bred from 11 and 12 year old shetland ewes. I think they would have gone on for longer on my farm, but they lived for the first 10 years on higher farms and had hill grazing, but had always been in a small flock (so a bit of TLC). I hope that my home bred shetland girls will go on at least until 10!

Not sure my larger Xbred girls will go on as long though, a couple of udders have started to become a bit droopy and they are now 3crop (4 year old)...

[lachlanandmarcus]

Mine went at 7 but not just cos of age, they had had various problems which meant they weren't suitable for breeding again eg TLD or mastitis or eg massively dropped udder which would also make them uncomfortable in the deep snow. If healthy, yes they could carry on quite a bit longer, we still have 2 of the old girls.