[JulieWall]

As we have some nice big ram lambs I have been wondering if it is worth leaving a big one intact to sell for breeding. Has anyone any experience of this and can give me advice?
I am reasonably confident about what to select for regarding conformation although any advice is always useful.
What I'm mainly dithering about is will buyers bid on something that isn't pure bred, is my 17lb lamb big enough to be a potential tup or does it need to start bigger still? How much demand is there for a decent sized working tup that isn't 100% Suffolk but looks it?

[Marches Farmer]

I would have thought a crossbreed would have limited appeal.  One of the consideration when selecting a crossing sire is that you know what you're going to end up with so, for instance, the Suffolk, Blue Faced Leicester or Southdown crossed on your female breed will give a predictable conformation, likely finishing time and weight, and so on.  If another breed is introduced into this equation the whole thing gets a bit, well, woolly.

[Tim W]

There are some cross bred rams sold in the commercial world , Sufftex, Chartex, Abermax etc but they are nearly all BLUP recorded and come from large flocks with excellent marketing arms. They can produce excellent carcase lambs with much less variation than many people think  (they all look the same when hung up---it's only in the live market that prejudice gets in the way)

But selling rams successfully is a competitive game---you need to be doing something right and be able to prove it to have a chance---performance recording/trait genotyping/pedigree registered etc

[Rosemary]

We don't register any of our tup lambs - we have Coloured Ryelands. They're worth more to us on the hook than for breeding - we wouldn't be able to compete with breeders who have great stock, loads of prizes, performance recording.

I will have to buy a tup this year though - oh, the stress 

[JulieWall]

These are 3 parts Suffolk and one part Texel.
From what I saw at the mart, there only seemed to be pure breeds but then how would you know for sure? No mention of pedigree from the auctioneer but I expect the sellers would be known in this small (but not geographically) community.
In the autumn sale someone bought my aged tup who fathered this lot which makes me wonder if I would get more for one of these sold entire than just as prime?

What about the starting weight of the lamb, is it significant enough when combined with good conformation?

[Me]

To be honest a high start weight is a big negative for me when there are so many oversize lambs, I'm sure people enjoy pulling lambs out! Ideally you want a good/moderate sized lamb that grows like hell once it hits the floor (without your help). I'm keeping my own tups as far as possible and am deliberately avoiding the highest birth weight lambs.

[JulieWall]

Bigger breeds have bigger ewes though, they only need help occasionally, this big issue used to worry me but not after all these years. I will say that not using a big headed tup on a small headed breed of ewe is good advice, but breeds with big heads can push out their own breed of lamb just fine for the most part.

[Me]

I must have imagined all those caesars I did on big pedigree ewes

[Ladygrey]

If it was me I would select in stages

1. parents, was the ewe good and milky and healthy? what was the ram like? longevity?

2. The actual birth, was he so big that he needed pulling? (I dont keep any ewe that has to have birth assistance and I dont keep any lambs that have to be pulled) was it an assisted birth? single or twin? some people want rams that were one of twins? most people dont want lambs that are too big at birth due to problems lambing, some big headed pedigree breeds still can get stuck even when bred pure

3. Growth rates (DLWG) did he need creep to get him how big he is now? or is he a nice ram lamb reared off just grass and forage?

4. Age at finishing size

Or as many pedigree breeders do, just stuff him up with feed and make him look good by using wool dye and all sorts of make up and then put him in the ring where everyone bids for the best looking ram regardless of his history and then you may get lots of money 

[SallyintNorth]

I completely agree with the comments about wanting a ram that gets small lambs that grow fast

(This is what has been done with the cattle breed British Blue and it has been the making of the breed as far as I am concerned.)

The large commercial breeds have such large backsides, and the double muscling can occur in the females internally too.  It's nothing to do with how large the head is.  It's the backsides and sometimes the shoulders that get stuck.  And mixups can be a real problem to sort out.

Many commercial fat lamb producers, such as ourselves, use none-pure Texel and Charollais type ewes with purebred or quarter- or half-bred tups (3/4 Texel 1/4 Beltex, Beltex x Charollais, and yes some people buy Sufftex) - but in general yes one would buy tups from known tup producers.  Folks producing just a few fat lambs, and where it's not their main product, sometimes will just buy a good-looking tup lamb from the fat or even store ring.

Aged tups are a different thing.  An aged tup who has clearly worked more than one season can be assumed to have been doing a good job, so has a value as being proven.

As to pedigrees in the auction ring - if there is a pedigree it would normally be made clear.  A lot of farmers aren't bothered about registration with breed societies, they want a tup that will perform and will buy with confidence from a producer who produces tups that do that

[trish.farm]

Regarding aged tups, what age is a tup classed as too old? My last ram (coradale) was 10 when i culled him, he had been doing a great job, ive only got 15 ewes, but on his last year i had 3 empty ewes so blamed him and culled him out.  Now have a beautiful Romney ram in his 3rd year.  consistently produces twins except one ewe who only ever has a single.  Do i keep him going as long as possible or cull at a certain age?

[SallyintNorth]

For many of us, a tup has to go once he'd be tupping his daughters, or it gets too difficult to make sure he isn't.  So aged tups for sale as such will often have worked only three or four seasons.

If you're not breeding your own replacements, and/or have an easy way of keeping a tup off his daughters for longer then most of us would do as you do - keep him while he's fit and working well, cull him if he's struggling or his results are poor. 

[JulieWall]

Thanks for all that advice folks, made my decision now
Ladygrey and Sally, most helpful especially.

I'm not leaving the balls on any, I've decided there's no point if a cross bred tup isn't saleable, balls just bring down his value as prime lamb. The mart boys pull out any entires and rigs and sell them separately so they don't bring down the price of the others.
It was just that looking at a nice big lamb with great conformation and a placid intelligent face, one has to wonder if it is a crying shame to ring him. With a ewe it's a no brainer, you keep her and change the tup especially with such a small flock as I have. The bigger males will fetch a great price as early prime lamb.

I think I know why my aged Suffolk tup (he was 6 by the way) sold amongst the purebreds. For the past few years I've had top price on the day for both prime lambs and store ewes consistently and so he would be known to have produced some decent progeny. As Sally said, he was 'proven'.

I think it might be worth finding a farmer who keeps Suffolks to source a replacement rather than bid for one at the mart, it will give me a chance to pick his brains a little too Two shear rams seem to drop in price dramatically compared to shearlings, maybe buying one, using him and moving him on fast would be a good plan too.
Any thoughts on that?

[SallyintNorth]

Yeah, a 2-shear tup is being sold because he didn't perform

They'll be sold as tup lambs or shearlings, if as lambs then of course unproven, if as a shearling then he may have worked as a lamb to check everything was okay or he may not have worked yet.

Aged tups will normally have worked two or three seasons at leaat.

Most people, even those who breed their ewe lambs, would, I would say, use a tup at least twice before moving him on.  Unless his lambs didn't impress...

[SallyintNorth]

balls just bring down his value as prime lamb. The mart boys pull out any entires and rigs and sell them separately so they don't bring down the price of the others.

It's not my experience that the entires fetch less than the wethers, and it isn't about price that they separate them out. 

Some - most - people who buy store lambs (and a lot of lambs being sold in the fat ring in fact go on for further finishing) will not want entires for two reasons.  One is obvious!  And the other is that once the hormones kick in, entire lambs can go a bit 'wooden' and not grow until the breeding season is past.  So a lot of buyers would not bid on a lot which included any entires amongst wethers and females. 

But some buyers manage entires so will happily buy them, and generally will pay the same price for them as their castrated half-brothers, provided of course that they are at least as good.

As fat lambs (genuinely finished, going straight to the abattoir) in fact some buyers will have a preference for entires.  Wethers can be overfat and less muscley, and therefore fetch less deadweight (which includes bonuses for conformation and leanness, penalties for being over-fat) than a good tup lamb.

However, my experience is Texel types and Charollais, all fast-growing, well-muscled, lean lambs.  Heavier breeds like Suffolks are outside my experience and it may be that the above observations do not apply to this kind of lamb.