[Rosemary]

Sorry, my post wasn't clear - I appreciate that these particular lambs would be mongrels. I was thinking generally about the Ryeland and other rare breeds - appropriately and honestly marketed, of course.

[ellisr]

If it produces good tasting meat does it really matter if it is pure breed or crossbreed (or mongrels as it has been put)
Aren't we striving to make a difference to what we eat?

Gosh I am in a one tonight  

[Rosemary]

If it produces good tasting meat does it really matter if it is pure breed or crossbreed (or mongrels as it has been put)

No, it doesn't matter but without pedigree breeding, it would be much more of a lottery.

[ellisr]

I do both and it brings a good balance. My cross bred lambs go for the freezer (and taste fab) and pure breds into the gene pool as long as the boys are castrated then life is good

[andywalt]

It was for this reason I went to market and brought a charallais, im sure you followed the post "Terminal Sire" I have a southdown and a romney and altho they would be ok......it wouldnt be as good as a charollais tups results, so very soon I will be splitting the flock, romney ewes to romney tup, pure bred, southdown tup to the small shetlands, and the charollais tup for the suffolks and texal x ewes.....

last year the results of my southdown who would be comparable to a ryeland (I think)  the lambs altho nice and chunky where very small half the size of the others

[humphreymctush]

In commercial terms it always makes sense to use a ram of a bigger breed than the ewes. Its a waste of money feeding a big ewe through the winter just so that she can have little lambs. I do the opposite. My shetland ewes can survive the winter on not much food and their big suffolk lambs have plenty of summer grass to reach commercial weight by this tme of year. I just sold all my suffolk X shetland lambs for £62 each. Pure texels were only going for £70

[andywalt]

sold at market? or sold to your clients freezer?

[humphreymctush]

market