[Fleecewife]

I was intrigued by the comment in the paper that both four horned and  polled could show split eyelid has split eyelid in polled sheep been a problem in the breed?

In Hebs, truly polled sheep are extremely rare, but are genetically multihorned.  Other breeds of sheep which are polled will not have the multihorned gene.

We have had 2 or 3 truly polled Hebs, all of which have had perfect eyelids.  It's difficult to tell with lambs if they are polled or they're going to have scurrs, which can appear after quite a while, and here they've been sold by then.

[kanisha]

Thanks Fleecewife, was just pondering the inheritance and if anything could be gleaned from  how and when it appears. I have zero interest in the politics of hebs however the genetics intrigues me 

[dst015]

Well we've just got back from the rare breeds sale at thainstone with 6 new Hebs so very happy ,we bought all the hebs available does that make us greedy ? Lol suz also got 3 national bee hives with all the kit needed for £43 now that is a bargain

Sorry to digress here but £43 for 3 national bee hives is an absoulte steal!!! they're about £300 each where i've been looking!! Utterly in awe of that!

[Big Light]

FW - back to your original question re split eyelids - our  mix of lambs this year only contained 2 4 horned both boys one nice and smooth the second with a slight notch on one side (it was born about a week later than the other). The notch although we like the mother will be an eater the other one we will see how he develops

[Fleecewife]

Yes, there are so many other aspects to consider, as well as horns, aren't there.

We do the same, any obvious problems, castrate and into the meat queue.  The rest (plus any we couldn't catch at banding time  ) grow on to 16 months, at which time we decide if they're meat or worth trying as sires.  We tend to run any promising ones with a couple of ewes before we sell them as breeding stock, to check fertility or any other breeding problems.  Some years we get no keepers, the most we ever had, back when we had a much bigger flock, was three keepers in one year, of the multihorned, which we found amazing    No wonder it's hard to find a good m/h tup !!

[Fleecewife]

So the two Heb tup lambs we intended to band proved impossible to do within the time limit.  Between us we've banded quite a few lambs, although not on the scale many of you have, but these lads just weren't co-operating. One had the well-known retracting peas, tiny little things way too small to be held by the ring; the other had one big (by primitive standards) and one retracting pea, so he's not done either. We tried three times, on separate occasions, then decided enough was enough.  Too late now.  It was only to suit our management plan, so not really important.
How embarrassing 

By contrast the single HebXShetland lamb had nice big co-operative Maltesers, now nicely trapped and due to fall off soon.

[pointer]

Hi all, not used to primitive breeds but this year have some HebX out of blackface ewes. We'd usually dock the tails of our blackface lambs, but I know it can be different with primitive breeds - any thoughts on docking these cross lambs?

[Fleecewife]

Hebs are members of the Northern Short Tailed race of sheep, although their tails are longer than many such as Shetlands and Soay.  So it's part of the breed description that registered Hebs keep their tails long - shortening the tails could be seen as a ploy to hide a less than purebred animal. 
However, wethers often have their tails docked when they are ringed.  They're never going to be registered obviously, and docked tails makes it obvious when handling which are ewe lambs and which are wethers.

I see no problem with docking the crosses if it helps your management.

[SteveRat]

This year we had 13 lambs from 8 pedigree two horn ewes = 162%. All lambs two horns.

A couple of tricky presentations (one front leg back and one back legs first). The most difficult was one ewe who's teats were blocked.  With a couple of visits from the vet we got one teat working - but we are still supplementary bottle feeding her smallest lamb.

6 ewe lambs and 7 males so a fairly even split.

[SteveRat]

Re: identifying wethers from ewe lambs.  We put the yellow tag in the right ear for female and left for males.  Makes identification a lot easier.

[fsmnutter]

Re: identifying wethers from ewe lambs.  We put the yellow tag in the right ear for female and left for males.  Makes identification a lot easier.

Ours are the other way round, yellow on the left for females LOL

[Womble]

So what age are Heb lambs usually sent away for meat then?

[verdifish]

So what age are Heb lambs usually sent away for meat then?

Now there's a question that you'll get 20 different answers for . Here 8-14 months

[Big Light]

We take a couple before xmas at about 6-7 months you get about 8kg ish of meat boned out - not really economic if your selling on but fine and tasty for the house we then run the rest to the summer / autumn so 14-18 months before the grass finishes meat weight 14 - 19 kg of meat boned out. Really just depends how much grass you have it you want to let some fields rest before winter then take them earlier

[Big Light]

Only 18 more answers to go