[SallyintNorth]

I confess that I do not understand the continued prevalence of Suffolks and latterly SufTexes.

Suffolks make heftier lambs, which is exactly what the market does not want.  The biggest market, and the best prices per kilo, are for 'supermarket' and 'export' lambs, which are much smaller and lighter than anything a Suffolk would sire.  Except maybe on a Shetland.

So I would be very glad to have the reasons for using Suffolk and Suftex tups explained to me!

[beagh-suffolks]

hopefully this poster is helpful for you .i find them extremely quick growing, suffolk X ewes make real good milkly mothers, ive had plenty of lambs go for export and had no problem with lambs getting good prices, how does the market not want them? suffolk lambs are well graded, i havent had to pull one lamb since ive changed to suffolk either (and ive tried alot of different breeds of ram)

[SallyintNorth]

Thanks for that.

Here's how I think about it at the moment.

Heavy lambs fetch less per kilo than lighter lambs.  A finished Dutch Texel or Charollais lamb might be 21kgs deadweight at 14 weeks old - and that is exactly what the supermarkets want.  Any heavier and the price per kilo nosedives. 

I regularly see lambs over 42kgs in the ring fetching less per head than lambs 36-40kgs - and that's because the largest market is the supermarket lamb.

When I look at primestock reports from our local mart, the top price per head for Suffolks is usually considerably less than the top price for Texels, and the ppk is also less - usually around 10% less, sometimes 20% less.  And they'll have been heavier lambs too, and taken longer to grow.  And had heavier mums taking more out of the ground. 

I don't get it! 

[Tim W]

Statistically a 3 way cross provides for the best hybrid vigour and usually optimum performance
The most popular Uk ewe is the mule (a cross bred) and traditionally this has been put to a 'pedigree' (=restricted genepool ) tup giving the end product , a fat lamb
If you have pedigree/purebred ewes you may well get advantage from using a crossbred tup to produce fat lambs

My limited experience suggests that the SufTex rams I have used have been vastly superior in terms of their progeny's growth, carcase and worm resistance
On the maternal side I have considerably more experience and can safely say that a crossbred ewe will almost always be better then a purebred (hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)

[Azzdodd]

The suftex should give good lambs also the the lleyn X texel good for first timers I presume slightly smaller head which should make for easier lambing which is what we all want :-)

[SallyintNorth]

Very interesting post TimW. 

(hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)

If you do find that reference regarding hybrid vigour in maternal, I would be most interested to read it. 

[SallyintNorth]

I shall sing my usual song...

Head size is not the issue.  Shoulder and backside size is the issue.

People think it must be heads because when there is a difficult birth, if the lamb has been coming head only or if it got stuck in the birth canal with the head in the canal and the shoulders failing to pass, then the head will have swollen because of the constriction behind it.  It was the shoulders which caused the problem but the shepherd sees it as a big head.

The only time head size matters is with breeds that have horned lambs that have large horn buds at birth, such as the Exmoor Horn.  Exmoor breeders aim for all twins, because a large single tup lamb is likely to have a head too big to be born, because of the size of the lamb plus its horn buds.

When selecting for easy lambing, here are some of the factors to include in your deliberations - my list from my experience :

• maternal effort - ladies who are 'too lazy to push' will exacerbate any lambing issues
• maternal pelvic size - primitive sheep often have wider pelvises than more modern breeds.  Swaley Mules are very roomy, Hexham Blackie Mules considerably narrower.
• shoulder width of tup and of ewe.  No-one pays you more money for width across the shoulders, so why would you want a lamb that's very wide across the shoulders.  And yet, meaty types such as Texels can be so broad across the shoulders that you cannot deliver a lamb that's one front leg back.  Note that shoulder width is not the same as heart room - a lamb can have plenty of width between the front legs and not have over-broad shoulders
• propensity to have single lambs - if you think you may have lambing issues, then twins is best, as singles are nearly always bigger
• width across the backside of tup and of ewe.  Same argument as shoulder width except that you do get paid more for fat lambs with good backsides.  So there is more desire for big-bottomed lambs and hence tups and ewes.
• ? lamb vigour.  I'm not sure if anyone has confirmed whether lambs that are very vigorous at birth are more likely to be active during parturition - but I'd suspect so.   And in any case, you want lambs that jump up and go round to the milk bar within minutes.  Too many Texel type lambs get tired out by parturition and don't try hard enough to feed; BFL crosses too can be like this.  I don't know about Suffolks, I've no firsthand experience of them.

[Me]

i havent had to pull one lamb since ive changed to suffolk either (and ive tried alot of different breeds of ram)

Really?

[beagh-suffolks]

really! have been real successful putting them to crosses! not one pulled! real happy , we used a hombred ram lamb, he lambed himself so we decided to retain him for breeding on the crosses

[landroverroy]

I confess that I do not understand the continued prevalence of Suffolks and latterly SufTexes.

Suffolks make heftier lambs, which is exactly what the market does not want.  The biggest market, and the best prices per kilo, are for 'supermarket' and 'export' lambs, which are much smaller and lighter than anything a Suffolk would sire.  Except maybe on a Shetland.

So I would be very glad to have the reasons for using Suffolk and Suftex tups explained to me!

I agree with you about the price/kg, but as Suffolks grow faster than Texels then you can still get as much, or more for a Suff x lamb as for a Tex x of the same age.
However, I use a Suffolk ram because of the ease of lambing. Now that I only lamb about 2 dozen ewes, I am not sitting up all night for 3 weeks in case of a difficult lambing. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I never have to pull one out, but it's rare to have to help a ewe that's lambed before. And it's even rarer to lose a lamb due to lambing problems. Which is more than I can say from when I used a top Texel ram.
But to get back to the original question about using a cross bred ram - to me the main advantage is that you aren't having to wonder which of the ram's parents it's progeny will take after. If one of the parents is not a meat breed then the lambs, although they may look quite adequate, will not have as good a conformation as if the ram was of a pure bred terminal sire.
In my case, using a pure bred Suffolk means that all the lambs have a black face and look uniform when penned up for sale. 

[nutterly_uts]

Was at the Ireland Athenry sheep weekend (http://www.teagasc.ie/events/2015/20150620.asp) a few weekends ago which had a few talks from irish commerical buyers through Bord Bia, and interestingly they are all focussing on uniformity in size and amount of fat- they don't want joints to vary by more than a few 100gs so they can be cut and prepacked by non butchers and sold to keep to a specific price. They are working to supply to European markets more than locally, but also want to increase people's interest in lamb. From memory, they wanted 1.5kg legs and small shoulders-  their line for too muchfat/good/too little fat was a very small margin.

When I took my friend shopping for lamb, finding joints was almost impossible - couldn't find a whole leg for love nor money, and only 1/2 shoulders - not sure if thats chicken or egg from whats mentioned!

Is this how the UK mainland market works?
I have to admit the "plan" I have in my head for lamb would need a complete rehaul if this is where the future lies!! (although I cannot be the only person who wants a whole shoulder or a proper leg of lamb?!)

[Tim W]

Very interesting post TimW. 

(hybrid vigour seems to be more pronounced in maternal traits ----I have read why but can't find the reference now)

If you do find that reference regarding hybrid vigour in maternal, I would be most interested to read it. 

Try 'Genetic improvement of cattle and sheep' Geoff Simm, yours for about £50 (may find one on ebay?)
Not light reading but lots of good info. and I think that's where I read up on this

Otherwise email someone at Eblex---they have good scientists/geneticists whose job it is to serve us---they are usually pretty patient with me and come up with an explanation in terms I can understand (just don't mention my name ---I think they curse me enough already) 

[Remy]

Ah well, I will experiment with my two, see what they produce.  I have a range of crossbred and purebred ewes (Charollais), and it doesn't really matter too much on the outcome. Watch this space! 

[Talana]

We have used suffolk x charollais tups in the past - what we got was one suffolk lamb and one charollais lamb,we tend to have pure tups now

[Marches Farmer]

When selecting for easy lambing, here are some of the factors to include in your deliberations - my list from my experience :

• maternal effort - ladies who are 'too lazy to push' will exacerbate any lambing issues

I wonder how much of that is due to a long final stage of labour if the lambs are big?