[Merrie Dancer]

we are hoping to get some sheep to keep on our croft and are wondering what breed to get.
these sheep will need to be hardy, easy to round up and also sell for a good price. it will be shared hill ground. we have considered shetlands but would love to consider rare breeds as long as they are saleable through the mart/abattoir. they have to be profitable.
thankyou

[moony]

Trouble with that is that firstly you cannot guarantee that any sheep will make you money and rare breeds in general are not that profitable, hence why they are rare breeds and do not sell particularly well at marts as they are different to the norm. You can get decent crosses out of them some of which are saleable but if you want to make a profit you are best looking at what the majority of farmers in the area have, as there is a reason why they have them. In general on hill ground you are breeding to produce breeding stock pure for hill and crossed for lowland farmers rather than specifically for fat lambs, so something like the Swaledale or Scottish Blackface depending on the area you are in.

[Hellybee]

lleyn x welsh, my favourite cross looking through our ewes, lleyn for theyre stature, rangy, big ewes then with a supson of welsh, again for theyre toughness, renowned mothering skills, and like the lleyn they are bright and easy to train i find.  some think that the lleyns are a bit bonkers, i just find theyre too clever for theyre own good hehe.  so yeah i think the lleyn will give good size and small elegant head and the welsh will up the timber x

[Hevxxx99]

I'm in a similar position.  I want some sheep that are reasonably docile (or at least unflighty) to cross to something commercial to produce either fat lambs or breeding stock, but can't decide what to go for. I'm on the North York Moors so fairly bleak and have somewhat untrustworthy dry stone wall field boundaries which have held my texel cross and mule pet lambs (now big fat 2 year olds) but would be a joke to something like Herdwicks. 

I'd love to have some Greyface Dartmoors or Whitefaced Woodlands to cross with possibly a Suffolk or Texel for big meat lambs but they are.... well... RARE.  I'll probably go for whatever I can get at the local mart in the end, for the reasons moony states, but as I'm not too far from York and the Rare Breed Sale is at the end of the month, I might get lucky!

[ZaktheLad]

Unless you are going for the rare breed sales for breeding stock, then the marts are not the best place to sell rare breeds - they go for next to nothing at my local mart each week.  You would need to cross them with something that will produce a more commercial type of lamb such as a charollais/suffolk or texel but even then, your buyers are likely to pay a lot less than a more recognised commercial cross.   Unless you are keeping sheep on a large scale it is very difficult to make much profit at all - definately don't go in to sheep if you think you are going to make a lot of money from them. 

Have you considered the Swaledale?

[devonlad]

lleyn x welsh, my favourite cross looking through our ewes, lleyn for theyre stature, rangy, big ewes then with a supson of welsh, again for theyre toughness, renowned mothering skills, and like the lleyn they are bright and easy to train i find.  some think that the lleyns are a bit bonkers, i just find theyre too clever for theyre own good hehe.  so yeah i think the lleyn will give good size and small elegant head and the welsh will up the timber x

always a personal preference and i'm very biassed I'm sure but I'd agree with Hellybee. I think a lleyn is a cracking sheep and we have a mix of lleyns, wilts horn and lleyn X wilts. maybe its because we handle ours a fair bit and are always calm and quiet around them and don't chase them round the fields with a dog but our lleyns are docile, completely bucket trained ( actually whistle trained too) I know certain breeds are more prone to flightiness but I believe that what ultimately decides how easy they are to handle is the handler

[Me]

+1 for Lleyn/lleyn mongrels - I do chase mine around with a dog now and then and find them easier to work with than some other wilder/hillier breeds

[Hellybee]

hehe the bucket training bit is a bit of an experience, ours are and i get a daily mugging, gawd they love theyre nuts.

we are currently looking to bring in new rams, i think a little more welsh here, we shall see, got all summer to mull it over x

[Blinkers]

Zwartbles.  Very docile, easy lambers.   Brilliant as pure breds and make cracking crosses expecially with a commercial type.  Big lambs too.   

[SteveHants]

I like a Lleyn, but I don't know if they are suited to your ground.


Were I you, I'd be looking at a NCC first off.

[shygirl]

what is a NCC?

[moony]

NCC = North Country Cheviot

[langfauld easycare]

  easycare   all the way although they are more upland as hill .mine did fine on hill but they came of at tupping time .  if its a harsh hill i would go for blackfaces cover them with nearly any tup  and you will get a good cross lamb for fat or breeding  

[jaykay]

Blackies or Swales, put a Leicester onto them to produce mule lambs. They'll sell well, it's an accepted set-up in the hills.

Shetlands can be bucket trained, but small and grow slowly, I'm about to try a crossing tup on mine but even so, they won't be the size of commercial sheep. You'd have to sell purebreds at specialist sales, not the general mart as has been said.

Cheviots are a good solid hill sheep - haven't kept them, a few folk round here do, I like the look of them. I suspect they need better grazing that the ubiquitous Swales who apparently can survive on mist and moss.

I used to keep Rough Fells. Huge mountain sheep, very friendly, tups away at 6 months to the butchers, make a cracking mule or cross. Not numerically a rare breed, as there am some big flocks of them locally, but included as very geographically constrained. I love them to bits and would still have them if I had better sheep handling facilities (they became too big for me to manage in wooden hurdle pens, turning by hand).

[goosepimple]

Hmm, rare breeds are rare for a reason, you know that when you keep them (like myself) and so it would be hard to make them profitable never mind pay for themselves, you have to be an 'enthusiast' to keep them. 


Making sheep profitable would have to mean numbers I would think, or you have to cross them with the right breed - Texel sheep are really cows aren't they?, in sheeps clothing