[mowhaugh]

Probably should have started off with introducing myself in the introductions area, but will do that shortly!

I have just been looking at the information about the festival, and it looks super.  I would be interested in bringing my Kerry Hills, but not sure if that is OK, as I am not a smallholder - we farm 800 Lairg type North Country Cheviot ewes, in the Cheviots, but I FEEL like a smallholder - we've two small sons, age 1 and 2, so I don't get so far out on the farm, and my day to day livestock activities consist of 17 Kerry hills, 6 chickens and 7 highland ponies!

Don't want to do anything that is against the rules/not in the spirit of the event by bringing sheep from a large farm, though.  The Kerrys are my new little enterprise, and I am really keen to get them out somewhere.

[Brucklay]

I think it would be lovely to see some Kerry Hills - the more the merrier I say and there are people on big farms  to back gardens on here it's not exclusively for smallholders as many others have so much knowedge to pass on - hope to see you there Mowhaugh

[bloomer]

welcome


smallholder is a state of mind not an amount of land or stock :-)


i know of 1 member who has a smallholding on a much bigger farm (smallholding is the bit for food for the house)


And some of the smallholdings run to 100+ acres,


I have 4 chickens in a suburban backyard, some people just grow veg...


I'm sure Rosemary will be along to confirm show rules, but as far as the site is concerned a smallholder is anyone who shares a similar ethos about their way of life, (or desired way of life, we have plenty of people still at the fact finding stage of their adventure).

[Rosemary]

Hi Mowhaugh,

We would be delighted to welcome you and your Kerry Hills to the Festival! In fact, it would be great if you could sneak a couple on NCC down as well for folk to admire and learn about.

Although it's aimed at smallholders and growers, the very last thing we want to do is foster any sort of "them and us" between different groups of farmer 

I assume you breed NCC pure to run on the Cheviots? What happens to you draft ewes? Do they come "down the hill" for crossing to the Border Leicester to produce Halfbred ewes?

[Simon O]

Hi Mowhaugh,
We have KH sheep too - 10 ewes with 13 lambs this year from our first lambing. We are about 10 miles north of Lanark so are hoping to go to the festival too and we look forward to seeing your sheep. It is great that you are on the TAS forum. I have sent you a PM - look in your 'my messages' box.
Cheers,
Simon

[mowhaugh]

Thanks for the welcome!  I have made a bit of a boo boo about the festival date, I have just realised that it is the day before we have our annual highland pony day, so now need to talk VERY nicely to my mum to see if she can do extra babysitting so I can come to the festival - she'd need to have my boys Friday, so I can set up for the pony day and prepare the sheep, Saturday for the festival, and Sunday for the pony day. Hmm.

Simon - thanks for your message, I'll message you back once I've spoken to my mum.

Rosemary, we do breed our Cheviots pure, but the draft ewes are causing us a dilemma at the moment - we keep them bringing them down to the lower ground round the steading, but have always tupped them with Texel X British Milk Sheep tups, which has produced a perfect cross as far as we are concerned - the resultant females are fab mums with loads of milk who produce 2 or sometimes 3 lambs who get straight to their feet and suck.  (These are then kept as our 'field sheep' and tupped with a MeatLinc to produce prime lamb) However, we can't get the Texel X Milk Sheep tups any more, so tried a Blue Faced Leicester this year the produce Cheviot Mules, but we aren't that excited by the offspring.  We are really unsure what to do this year.  we have an old Zwartble tup here and use him a bit, and that is a fab cross, but buyers don't seem so keen on the black lambs.  We are thinking about going to the Logie Durno sale to have a look at the Logie hybrid tups, but are really unsure at the moment, so any suggestions would be great.

[SallyintNorth]

i know of 1 member who has a smallholding on a much bigger farm (smallholding is the bit for food for the house)

He may mean me 

I think the Logie tups look outstanding.  I'd be glad to know what your thoughts on them are if you take this any further.

Would Beltex do the same job as Texel X Milksheep?  We find the Beltexes to be very very milky and at least as well-muscled as the Texels.

[mowhaugh]

Hi Sally, sorry, I just saw your post.  We didn't go for the Logies, not because of anything to do with the sheep, but because of logisitcs - my husband was combining and I couldn't get a babysitter to go by myself.  I would still be very interested to try them in the future.

we decided against Beltex as we thought the lamb numbers would reduce a bit in the same way they would with a pure Texel - had the lambs been the 'end product' so to speak, we may well have gone for something like a Beltex, but because the females are to retain to then tup to produce fat lambs, we were wanting something with more maternal traits, which the Milk Sheep put in before.  We are now taking a bit of a stab in the dark, having no personal experience at all but done lots of reading and visited a couple of breeders, and have decided to try Berrichons.  Will report back in about a years' time once we know if it has been a success.

[mmu]

There is always something interesting on here!