Lowland sheep?

foxylock

Hi folks.

I have a handy sized flock of scottish blackface sheep at the moment but have room to expand a little and was thinking of purchasing some lowland sheep. I have suitable pasture and accomodation for them but all my experience is with the hill breeds. I've been looking at the Texel breed and also the Charollais but am circling a bit and can't seem to make a decision. Anyone out there rear these breeds and what are the pros and cons? Also when would you say the best time to purchase would be?

All help appreciated.

Cran

Breed your own mules ewes and cross with Charollais?

or are you looking to breed pedigrees?

foxylock

Thanks for the reply Cran

I dunno if I have the time to devote to pedigree breeding. Are you saying to cross Blackface and Charollais? what would the market be like for the resulting lambs? indeed what would the resulting lambs be like?

snowman707

after seeing them at the ploughing and saw some ewe lambs a neighbour bought, I must say I was very impressed with the Hiltex Breed, I would go a texel from your blackface ewes and cross the offspring to the charollais

http://www.irishtexel.com/catalogues/Hiltex.pdf

errisshooter

Id agree with cross breeding ta scotch blackface with texel i have done this and i find them very good breeding ewes and still carry alot of there mothers hardy nature and the weathers gain weight alot faster than your scotch weather.:D,cant tell you much about the charollais i have never kept them but they look a pretty good sheep.:rolleyes:,Always look for lenght in one iam told!!.With the past few years i have been breeding blue leister ram's with mayo blackfaced ewes to provide me with breeding ewes and i find them fantastic hardy sheep with great length and bone i then cross these ewes with texel,suffolk or zwartable ram.;),

...............Result....................
1 - Easy finished factory lambs
2 - No Lambing problems
3 - Lively lambs at birth
4 - Very milky ewes

foxylock

I know what you mean bout the Texel/Blackface cross as a few years back the neighbours ram broke in and serviced a few of the uncles ewes. The decendents are still about the place and doing well even on hilly ground in the winter. I might investigate more into getting a few Texels next year and crossing with the Blackface for a start. Thanks for the advice guys.

flatout11

run your old ewes on the best groung with a blue leicester lamb them march and sell off the mule lambs for a tidy penny each yea, simple system with only 2 breeds involved why start messing around for small numbers

Username John

foxylock wrote: »

Hi folks.

I have a handy sized flock of scottish blackface sheep at the moment but have room to expand a little and was thinking of purchasing some lowland sheep. I have suitable pasture and accomodation for them but all my experience is with the hill breeds. I've been looking at the Texel breed and also the Charollais but am circling a bit and can't seem to make a decision. Anyone out there rear these breeds and what are the pros and cons? Also when would you say the best time to purchase would be?

All help appreciated.

Hello,

Dont knwo too much re hill sheep, I know little enough about the lowland

Do you want to buy proper lowland sheep & would this mean having 2 flocks. As I am not sure the lowland sheep would do on the hill, but depends on the hill I guess.
Plus, I imagine there be extra work compared to hill sheep - treating for lameness / foot bathing, extra dosing?

If you cross some of your existing black-faced sheep with a lowland breed - would it be to get replacements from, or just to get lambs with more confirmation?
Texel might give you both - both good lambs & be able to keep some of the ewe lambs as replacements, if they are already doing ok on the hill as you say, then maybe this is the way to go.
BFL might be a better start, and then cross the result with a lowland breed?

Charloais in my very limited experience, (and I may be slatted for saying this) would not be good for replacements. It seems a bit hit and miss as to whether they would have good milk or not... again I stress, I only have limitied experience with small numbers...

What about Lleyn? They were all the talk before. I know at least one person on here has crossed them this year with a blackfaced ewe - here

But then again, I only have a few Suffolks, so what do I know about crossing hill sheep

foxylock

Well John the last time I crossed a blackface sheep she butted me in the arse :D:o. I need to expand to keep the grass down and make a few quid, the potential is there alright. But the more I think about it, the more I reckon running two seperate flocks is not a good idea as the place needs alot of work in regards to fencing etc. I want to introduce a paddock system in the coming year or so and take the open plan look out of the place.

So I'm leaning toward expansion and with 95% of the flock blackies I am unsure as to what my next move should be. If I start crossing them I will eventually breed out my own blackies who have been on that hill longer than living memory. But by not crossing I'm missing an opportunity to improve flock productivity which should in turn increase profitability.

I foresee another sleepless night.......:eek:

Vandy West

New to the game myself, but if you are running two rams or more, you could run one blueface leicster and one blackface ram, that way you would get mules from the blueface and replacements from the blackface ram. The mule ewes would sell nicely (not sure if the blueface would cause an increase to the number of lambs). The mule weathers take a bit longer to finish so that would be a downside. Another negative is the blueface leicster rams are known for being soft (and aren't cheap), so you would have to keep him sweet in the winter. A plus would be you would only have one flock so you wouldn't have to do too much fencing probably.

Conflats

I'm very surprised nobody has thrown Belclare into the mix, cant go wrong with the higher prolificy, sure the more lambs per ewe= more to sell, i know a few lads crossing belclares with cheviots for maternal side and then using charollais for terminal stock