[Rosemary]

When we bought our first three ewe lambs, we took them back to their breeder to be tupped (by an unrelated tup) and brought them home in-lamb with no problems. We did this for two years until the other breeder sold up and we moved to Angus.

We bought our first tup last September 2010 and he's a star. Unfortunately, because his daughters will be coming into the flock next year, we'll have to sell him.

My plan is to take him to the Carlisle Rare Breed Sale. Because he's from a flock in the North of Scotland, I'm hoping that his breeding will be more sought after with Carlisle buyers than our local sales. Not for the money, but so that he gets a breeding home. He'd be a good buy - so far, he's got all his ewes pregnant first time and he knows his job. I will certainly be looking at older rams from good flocks - with only 13 to cover, he won't have to work too hard.

Although we haven't shown him, Leo was 3rd in the Ryeland shearling ram class at the Royal Highland Show in 2010 and was Champion Ryeland at the show and sale at Thainstone that year. His breeder had the ram that was 1st in the RHS class as well, so Leo had to go   

I'll be sorry to see him go - he's such a big, docile boy but hey ho, onwards and upwards.

[BacheBrook]

Your advice is all so valuable! I'm off to the winter fair (royal welsh) in a couple of weeks and I know you can buy lambs there just gutted my land is being rented out over winter! But then I suppose it stops me spending when I should be saving