[Fishyhaddock]

Hi all. 
Have had a very kind offer from Brucklay of the loan of her Shetland Tup to service my Wiltshire Horn Ewes for this season.
 Just wondering if anyone as any experience of the combination of cross?
 Also when you start to cross does it effect the ease with which the girls lamb. As I must admit I am really impressed with how easily the Wiltshires seem to "pop them out" without any problems. Any thoughts or shared experienced would be much appreciated.
Thanks   Fishy

[shygirl]

i dont know about WH but shetlands seem nice and neat, and most traditional breeds are easy lambing. its the bigger texel / mule types that get stuck coming out i think.

[Tim W]

There is a man near me who keeps about 200 shet x wh ewes which he grazes on old landfill sites. They are small (40/45kg ) ewes that are very low management ewes---he crosses them to a texel and I think they rear about 1.2 lambs a year with almost zero inputs
W Horns will lamb easily to just about any sire (I've kept 200 WH for many years) but if you wanted a  nice carcase lamb I wouldn't use a Shetland as a tup---In an ideal world I would go for something a bit meatier. I have used a meatlink with good success but any terminal sire would do

But a loaned tup may be a lot cheaper than buying one 

[SteveHants]

When I get round to it, I'm going to get a few shetlands and put them to the wilts and have a play with that cross myself. Might well put the cross to a charollais....