[humphreymctush]

Could anyone who has crossed shetland ewes with a terminal sire breed please tell me which breed of ram they used, what the lambs were like and whether there were any lambing difficulties due to extra large lambs. I have used a Suffolk and meatlinc rams on manx and hebredian ewes with sucess. My shetlands have had one crop of pure bred lambs and I am thinking of trying a Beltex next for carcass quality. I would be interested in your experiences of this kind of thing.

[Anke]

I have a number of Shetland X Txl ewes, they are medium in size and good/easy lambers, a couple of them also have triplets. So crossing with a txl would be ok (for their second crop or later), and I would not choose really small ones. (and also not a giant txl either!) I have some "commercial"  pure Shetlands and plan to put them to a bigger tup.

Another one recommended to me is a Charolais tup, but I have not found any locally to me yet (and haven't looked that hard either, as so far I didn't have enough fields to separate different batches of ewes with different tups.

If you speak to local Shetland breeders they also might be able to recommend (or even sell you) a crossing tup.

[bigchicken]

Hi I have used a Beltex sire on my Shetlands several times and have very little problems at lambing. You should get a good chunky lamb of over 30kg if on good feeding and over 40kg if you over winter. The resulting half bred lambs if put back to a Shetland sire also grow as well as the first cross, Thats been my experience hope it is of some use

[daddymatty82]

i agree wit both of the above comments we got a flock of shetlands did have a ram also bath and west mutiple champ but has gone walkies.  the shetland cross  is a great way to get the best tasting meat in my opinion cross with a beltex or texal and you will be laughing we had a few lambs deadweight at 20+ kgs but on average is around 18-20kg so id go beltex or texal every time

[shetlandpaul]

up here its either cheviots or suffolk crosses. thet then cross with the other. you should not have problems with lambing. we are weird we have 3 cheviots and we have crossed with a shetland ram. the lambs always make a good size. the shetland ewe is very good at being crossed.

[doganjo]

I know nothing about sheep, pigs or cattle but very keen to be always learning!  What is a 'terminal sire'   When I read the heading I thought it meant one that was dying and you wanted to get progeny from him before he passed on so I just HAD to read the answers!

[Rosemary]

The terminal sire is the one used to produce the prime meat lambs.

Sheep production in the UK is stratified; hill, upland and lowground. Hill ewes will  go to hill tups to produce pure bred replacements and store lambs that will be fattened on good lowland pasture. Older hill hill ewes will come off the hard hill on to upland pasture and go to a crossing sire like Blue faced Leicester, Border Leicester to produce Mule and half bred lambs; the males are sold as stores to lowground farms and fattened for meat and ewe lambs go into the lowground flocks. These mules and halfbreds have the hardiness, thriftiness and good mothering of the hill breeds and the prolificacy and milkiness of the crossing breed; the mules / halfbreds are on good lowland pasture and crossed to the terminal sires from meat breeds - Suffolk, Beltex, Texel for example - to produce prime lamb at about 5 / 6 months.

This is a bit of an over simplification, but it gives you the idea.

[doganjo]

Thanks, Rosemary.  Hows the weather up there - pretty wet here today, glad the BBQ was yesterday!

[Rosemary]

Windy but gloriously sunny. Off to play with the ponies now.