[waterbuffalofarmer]

Hi
As you know I adore my Lleyn sheep. I try and only buy in high performance Lleyn tups now, signet recorded, as I'm hoping to breed better stock. My flock, well really mine and my dads flock, are pedigree animals and are almost perfect in my eyes (IK biased but that's the way it is). Past couple times we have spent nigh on £1000 for tups, signet recorded ones, which have proved to be a success. However, here's the clincher please bear with, we have way enough replacements for the next couple of years, flock is a young flock. This year I'm selling Dave, our stockram, and buying in another ram. I am torn whether to buy in another signet recorded ram and sell off the offspring at a high price, as they will be very good, through society sales/privately, or to go with a commercial breed and sell everything at mart. Me and my dad are leaning towards a commercial cross, but we have ruled out beltex/texel/suffolk/hampshire down and charrolais. Hampshire downs would be for early finish lambs, but we have had so much trauma keeping them in the past we cant do that again... the charrolais is a no go, because of the hair issue, we lamb all of ours outdoors and cannot afford to lose that many... we dont want to downgrade by buying in a lesser quality of Lleyn tup either. Texel/beltex are out for various reasons, firstly I despise beltex, they in my opinion are monsters and I wouldn't be seen dead with them on my holding. Texels are a no go, because I want easy lambing experience and texels have a habit of throwing massive lambs, I have a lesser hands on approach when lambing my ewes and it works both ways Suffolk is just absolute no go. We were looking into berrichon, as they seem a good bet? What would you guys suggest as faster growing breeds, good conformation, would fetch good price in market place and such? I was thinking cheviot or border leciester. A friend suggested Lonk sheep, but my dad didn't want that.... Hill charmoise was also out of the equation as they are pretty small. IK it may come across as me seeming picky and such, but are there any other breeds out there I should consider?
Many thanks

[waterbuffalofarmer]

this is my current stockram
https://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/show/117790804/pedigree-pure-lleyn-ram.html?link=%2Fsearch%3Fkeyword%3Drams%2Bwanted

[SallyintNorth]

If you get a Charollais that has wool on his head he’ll throw lambs that are better covered.  In every other respect they’re exactly what you’re looking for. 

We had two in Cumbria, outdoor lambing from Texel cross (and Lleyn cross) ewes and only had a very few really bare lambs over five years of using them.  They are born easily - the smoother skin means less friction - which translates into easy lambing and very active lambs. So they get up and get milk quickly, which makes them warm quicker than Texels or others.   

In bad weather we would (and not just when using Charollais tups) get out and jacket any newborns that had other than a really thick coat (usually lambs born to Mules) and I can’t think we lost Charollais lambs to weather any more than we did Texel lambs. Probably less in fact. (The latter can be a bit dopey and slower than the Charollaises.  I often thought this could be in part that being more muscular at birth, they had a slower more stressful birthing which took more out of them.).  I’m sure we jacketed a higher proportion of Charollais x lambs than we did Texel and Beltex x lambs, but the lambs did so very well we didn’t mind the cost of the jackets!  . (And unless it was evil cold wet weather, none of ‘em needed jacketing.)

I would have thought Charollais on Lleyn would be a dream cross. The Charollais lambs grow like billy-o, always weigh more than they look; the Lleyn produces gazillions of milk off grass - wowzer.  .

If you’re still concerned about thin skins, you may be able to get a Charollais x Beltex tup. (Beltex would be my second choice for you if you didn’t “despise them”! ;p). )

I’ve no experience of Berrichon but from what I hear it would suit your situation. How the lambs would sell I’m not sure, and I don’t know about growth rates.

Lonk is a hill sheep, totally not what you’re looking for.

One other idea...  I’ve used a Romney this time and the lambs are super.  Fab shapes.  Too soon to talk about growth rates but I’d expect them to do well.

[SallyintNorth]

I don’t know how much you feed your ewes before lambing, but you might want to reduce the amount of high protein feed if you go for a muscle-type tup.  Too much protein can lead to very muscley lambs at birth and harder birthings.  Make sure the ewes get enough sugar and minerals of course, but keep the concentrate as low as is consistent with ewe health. 

[harmony]

I'm not quite getting why you want to move away from your pure Lleyns after investing all this time and money if it works for you?


The point about signet recording is that you are buying basing your decision on data.

[Foobar]

we have way enough replacements for the next couple of years, flock is a young flock.

You have put a lot of effort into keeping a good pedigree flock, don't undo all that work by switching away from Lleyns in the short term if you want to keep them pure in the long term.
Regarding your comment on having enough replacements - then you need to look again and cull harder (your flock will be better for it) (cull or sell, either way, get rid of the worst performers, even if they only have small faults).  You are better off keeping some replacements every year, not just some years, so you always have a range of ages in your flock.

[Foobar]

...and if you don't want to stay pure in the long term, go with Exlana.  No point making work for yourself.


And I agree with your view on the Beltex.  I don't much like the Texel either for that matter, ugly big heads!

[twizzel]

The Texel does cross on a lleyn very well though, a good meat lamb and the ewe lambs would make good breeding ewes- I’ve got a few and they are great sheep. I put a dorset ram on my ewes for the last couple of years although the resultant lambs would be better sold dead than live. My plan for the years going forward is to put my ewes to lleyn and texel rams if I can find somewhere to keep a couple of rams 

[Me]

.... Hill charmoise was also out of the equation as they are pretty small. IK it may come across as me seeming picky and such, but are there any other breeds out there I should consider?
Many thanks

I can tell you from personal experience they grow as quickly to 38-41 kg as a one of those big lovely high performance Lleyn out of pure Lleyn ewes. 1000s of Lleyn x Charmoise lambs go through Dunbia every year. Unless you are looking for 45kg plus lambs they are big enough.

[Womble]

Not a sheep point specifically, WBF, but one relating to general strategy.

I find that I often think about decisions as 'all or nothing', when actually they're not. Where possible, it's often better to go for a hybrid strategy to spread the risk. The classic example is if you buy some shares (or sheep I suppose!) that then go up in value. You might then be tempted to sell, to lock in the gains, but equally tempted to hold on in case they go up more. A good solution in this case is to sell half - that way you end up doing ok in either scenario.

So, to relate that back to your farm, you could consider keeping your existing Lleyn tup and running him with all the ewes he's not related to, whilst also running a different breed tup with your other ewes. That way you would still get some good replacements every year, but would also get to try out a cross-breed or two to see how it worked for you.

If you run a sufficiently different tup that you'll always be able to tell who the Daddy is, you could even run them separately for one cycle and then put all of the ewes and tups in the same field so that they can sweep for each other. That again reduces the risk from either tup firing blanks or having an off-year.

HTH! 

[landroverroy]

I use a suffolk ram - why do you not like them?
Easy lambing, fast growing and colour coded offspring, so buyers know what they are getting.

[Me]

If you paid a lot for your ram, and he is amazing - keep him. If you don't need to keep replacements sell them.

[SallyintNorth]

we have way enough replacements for the next couple of years, flock is a young flock.

You have put a lot of effort into keeping a good pedigree flock, don't undo all that work by switching away from Lleyns in the short term if you want to keep them pure in the long term.

I don't understand that.  What harm does it do to have a commercial tup for a year or two, and then return to signet recorded pedigrees?  Assuming no ewe lambs are retained from the commercial tup lambings, of course.

Frankly, I'd rather buy Lleyns from someone who does trial them with a terminal sire now and again, and who knows what sort of a fat lamb they can actually produce, rather than being all into breed characteristics and no idea how they perform as a crossing ewe.

[CarolineJ]

I'm biased but what about a North Country Cheviot tup?  No problem lambing outdoors and no potential problems with big heads for lambing like the Texels.

[SallyintNorth]

Good shout. Not fast growing though, but make fab weights for the New Year /early spring markets.