[JHunter2013]

Hiya! My husband and I are looking to start our own small scale pedigree flock. We've got 14 acres near Dumfries and barns. I'm a vet as well and have a lot of sheep experience (but on a large scale). So my question is this.. what do you recommend as a nice little venture? We want to try to at least break even (until we can get more land). We're trying to take into account the area we're in, and the small scale of land, as well as carcass quality, mothering, milk, easy of lambing etc.

So does anyone have any suggestions?

We've come up with a few breeds we were thinking of, but what do y'all think? Any to discredit or some new ones to consider?

*Clun Forest
*Border Leicester
*Cheviot
*Jacob
*Ryeland
*Zwartble
*Lleyn

Really looking forward to sharing and learning from everyone!

Cheers,
Jennifer

[Gunnermark]

I am no expert and I am sure many will comment, I can only speak from my own experience.I have kept Jacobs in the past and found them to be great mothers and milky and I had no lambing issues! Currently have Lleyns and Poll Dorsets and the Lleyns are better mothers and no problems lambing but I am in the South West and what works here may not work up there with you.

[shygirl]

my vet keeps lleyns. so they must be ok 

[langfauld easycare]

  i have mostly easycares and easycare cross i do well with them. also have a few pedigree charollais and beltex and last few pedigree lleyns .also recently bought a flock of blackies in lamb to the charollais . alot depends on land ,end goal , available time etc


i would try one or two different kinds first to see what suits best before committing . if its more commercial older draft blackies are a great start you can cover them with nearly any tup and get a good lamb for both jobs meat or breeding . my easycare x blackie mules are superb and about 3/4 of them shed there own wool [size=78%]   [/size]

[SteveHants]

Lleyn are a decent sheep, but the breed is pretty commercially minded and I don't think you'd keep enough of them on 14ac to justify recording, which is how a lot are sold now.


It is quite hard to get into the money-go-round of pedigree sheep breeding (in that it is easy enough to buy expensive stock, but hard to sell them at much above meat price until you have built up your reputation over a number of years).


I wouldn't fall into the trap that having a pedigree stamp is an easy ticket to high prices for your stock or everybody would be doing it.


Why don't you get something that you like and suits your ground and have a go at producing store/fat lambs until you build up a reputation?

[shygirl]

the breed is pretty commercially minded and I don't think you'd keep enough of them on 14ac to justify recording, which is how a lot are sold now.

recording what - weights?

[Hellybee]

what are you wanting as your end result are you wanting to produce meat or fleece or both, i dunno i love our lleyns and they ll live anywhere, but even on a registered level is there money to made, we tend to do store lambs, it suits us and i dont think we ve got enough of an eye in to finish them being on our 5th year keeping them, theres still alot to learn, im used to ponies, so this is very different lol

i dont know much about the other breeds, but i do rather like the look of the zwartbles and the ryland

[smee2012]

We ventured into sheep for the first time in 2012, with a small flock of Zwartbles ewe lambs, and another four (boys) of the same breed as store lambs. The girls have been exceptionally easy to look after so far and this year we bred our own lambs for the first time.

Only one of the ewes needed assistance (because she had twins coming together) - the others all got on and did it themselves with no help at all (outdoors). They've all been excellent mothers and are very milky (as they are a dairy breed). We didn't have any triplets ourselves this year but I know they are more than capable of raising triplets themselves due to their high milk yield. Just across the way there is a large flock of Zwartbles sheep that are kept as a dairy herd and that's going pretty well I hear!

The Zwartbles fleece is of very good quality for spinning (so I've heard, I don't spin so can't verify that) and the meat is lovely and lean and sweet. We sell half lambs to family and friends and they all come back for more!

Zwartbles are a large sheep but very friendly and docile. I'm only 5'3" and manage them all fairly well (although they do get a bit bargy at teatime so I have to warn my young kids to stand aside then).

[SallyintNorth]

Hi Jennifer  from just south of the Border.  Commercial (but traditional) beef and sheep farmers, plus I have a small fleece flock on the side. 

Lleyn ewes sell well at Carlisle, I don't know about Dumfries.  We had a batch one year and they have done well.  We even looked at using a Lleyn tup on some of our ewes.  The only real criticism is the multiple births - but then they were pretty good at rearing triplets.   However, for us, as we mix the breeds in our commercials, the multiple births are a problem so we haven't bought any more Lleyns.

Cheviots are popular - but you'll be aware there are two distinct types?  Hill and North Country.  I think the NC is the larger type.  Cheviot store lambs sell extremely well at Longtown every year - we always look and rarely buy because they are very expensive and sell in larger groups.  When we do get a pen of 20 or so, they do really well, selling as prime hogg after Christmas.

Cheviot is also a really nice fibre for handspinning    .  You've a Guild at Dumfries for a market... oh, and me

Zwartbles is okay for spinning but frankly it's nothing special.  It has good colour, washes easily, it's a large fleece per sheep, and it doesn't felt, but it's a shortish staple and not soft.

Lleyn is supposed to be nice.  I didn't spin back when we had purebred Lleyns, would love to try one now

Border Leicester would be very interesting - superb fleece and I one I haven't managed to get some of yet  - and is now on the RBST Watchlist in the Minority category.  I've no idea how saleable they would be though.    Should be fine as a meat sheep, and the fleeces would certainly sell  , but how big a market there is for breeding stock, I don't know.

Most handspinners, despite what you hear, do not queue up for a Jacob fleece.  They can be very variable, shall we say .  One of our neighbouring farmers still has Jacobs, and his mam used to spin, so she selects a nice fleece for me now and again .  It's usually a crossbreed   They like their Jacobs as part of the commercial flock, and cross them to the Texel for a meat lamb.  (And the black fleeces of this crossbreed can be very nice.)  One of BH's rellies breeds Jacobs; I'm not sure they've found the pedigree market very easy to break into.  From what they say, some markets have higher prices than others - so I think they buy at St Boswell's and sell at Skipton, or something like that.

There are a fair few small Ryeland flocks around and nice fleeces will sell to handspinners.  Again, breeding stock seems to sell ok at Carlisle.  There are others on here know far more about Ryelands than I do so I won't say more than that!

Clun Forest I know nothing at all about - maybe they will have rarity value up here! 

The other breed you may have thought about and rejected, or may not have thought of, is Teeswater.  (There's a registered starter flock for sale in Marketplace right now as it happens.)  Again, a lovely fleece for handspinners, and you can clip twice for two crops.  I paid £30 for a Teeswater lamb's fleece a couple of years ago.  On the RBST Watchlist (vulnerable category this year.)  Crossed onto the Blackie or Swale you get a Masham - also a superb fleece for handspinners, and not so easy to source nice ones as complete fleeces.  A touch of Teeswater is often lurking in the ancestry of a crossing Leicester (the type farmers buy to put on their Blackie and Swaley ewes to produce Scotch and North of England Mules) - the Teeswater is what gives the best face colour in the Mules   A big enough sheep for non-breeders to sell well as stores or fat.  Very hard to find breeding stock for sale in the marts - which may mean there's no market or may mean you would get a reasonable price.    Oh - and they are very friendly, meltingly beautiful sheep. .  There was a pen of them at Woolfest last year and pretty much everyone fell in love with them 

[mowhaugh]

Cheviots are popular - but you'll be aware there are two distinct types?  Hill and North Country.  I think the NC is the larger type.  Cheviot store lambs sell extremely well at Longtown every year - we always look and rarely buy because they are very expensive and sell in larger groups.  When we do get a pen of 20 or so, they do really well, selling as prime hogg after Christmas.

Cheviots are confusing.  There are the North Country Cheviots and the South Country Cheviots. 

Within the North Country Cheviot, there are then two types - what are just called North Country Cheviots (often known as Park type or Park Northies) in the flock book, and what are called the Hill North Country Cheviot (often known as Lairg Type, or Lairg Northies).

The Lairg Northies are MUCH more like the South Country Cheviot than the Park Northies. 

And to confuse matters further, the South Country Cheviot, which came pretty close to being lost in foot and mouth, seems to be being rebranded as the Hill Cheviot (as opposed to the Hill North Country Cheviot).

Southies and Hill/Lairg Northies would pretty much suit the same sort of hill ground, and indeed look very similar to the unfamilar eye, but you would get more, faster growing lambs with better carcass quality (whilst still remembering that it is a hill breed) from a Hill/Lairg Northie. 

[jaykay]

SteveHants is right (unsurprisingly  ) that getting a name as a decent pedigree breeder takes ages, and you won't sell at pedigree prices until you do - though of course you'll buy at them. A good name will happen much faster in a breed that fewer people keep. So personally I'd avoid the big, commercial breeds.

But fundamentally, you need to choose something you like, and accept that you're not going to be producing much other than meat lambs for some time, plus possibly breeding females, if you pick a rare breed.

[langfauld easycare]

one i fancied trying that gets good press was hampshire downs . going to try one or a newzeland suffolk on my older/lesser easycares this year . breed my best pure

[JHunter2013]

Thanks everyone! I think we've narrowed it down to the following;

Zwartble
Clun Forest
South Country Cheviot

From what I'm gathering, those three all produce pretty good fat lambs (yummy!) so that shouldn't be a problem. I know the Clun Forest isn't that big up around our area, so wondering if it's worth getting some up here or looking at the others, as they are far more common in this region.

Also, how do you go about selling the wool to hand spinners? Just tell you guys here? 

And, should we consider getting a ram as well, or just think about AI/renting a ram? We've got a special little lamb, in the picture below, who is a hermaphrodite (vagina, enlarged clitoris and a full set of testicles), but she was my first ever pet lamb and will be staying as a companion (maybe a teaser if she'll mount??), so we would be able to keep a ram in theory. I don't think we'd start off with more than 10 ewes and just go from there. So would it be better to just go to market and get whatever is available to use for the first year or so, or think about getting a small pedigree flock and build up?

Thanks again! Really really getting excited

[SallyintNorth]

No picture to oooh and ahhh over, I'm afraid.

Selling fleece - there's a Guild in Dumfries, meets in St Teresa's Church Hall on the second Saturday of every month.  They're friendly helpful people

At first it might be best to make a personal contact with the Guild - they'll advise you on what makes a good handspinning fleece, and how to prepare one for sale, etc.  Otherwise, yes, let us know about it here, and/or on Ravelry, or you can take 5 fleeces to sell to Woolfest at the end of June...

There's a brilliant website listing lots of links and info for fleece sellers and buyers here - great pics of a super fleece for handspinners, almost falling apart, and then partway down the page links to the pdf leaflets produced by Wool Clip and hosted on YarnMaker website.

I think it probably would be worth buying some local sheep to 'get your hand in' - and most importantly, forge relationships with local sheep farmers who can help and advise you about marts and other local info.  You can usually pick up a perfectly serviceable (ha ha) tup lamb in the fat ring who would give you a perfectly good fat lamb crop.  And then you can put him in the fat again

Then once you have your sheep setup honed you can start looking for your pedigree foundation flock. 

Personally I have an antipathy towards AI in sheep, although we do use it in our cattle so I probably shouldn't feel that way! 

Renting tups can be fraught - just what diseases is he bringing with him and from where?  Buying an aged good pedigree tup might be a good way to start - he's proven but being sold as he'd be coming onto his daughters.  We bought a pedigree Charollais tup for £450 who had been several thousand pounds as a shearling tup!  Or you may find another local breeder happy to let you have the use of one of their tup lambs so they can see his offspring before they sell him as a proven shearling.  (One of our local Blue-faced Leicester breeders does this - he only sells crossing Leicesters that are proven to sire well-marked Mule offspring.   So he can command high prices, because you know the tup is a proven breeder of good stock.)

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Hi
I keep a flock of pure Pedigree Lleyns and for me they are the ideal breed. Easy lambing, plenty of milk for their lambs and excellent mothers. Have you ever considered Zwarbles? I understand they are quite similar to the Lleyn
and are excellent mothers, lambing easily and also they have plenty of milk for their lambs. The carcases for Lleyns and Zawartbles are not very lean and are very tasty.
Hope this helps.