Growing Cabbage for Lambs

Arrow in the Knee

I intend to grow cabbage for this years lambs for shows and especially sales.

Last year I grew two varieties of 'round headed' cabbage Golden Acre Primo II and Savoy 'I forget the name but it has purple veins in the outer leaves'.

Just wondering is there any other variety that is round headed, quick and easy to grow?

All comments welcome

snowman707

remember reading on a uk forum about a farmer who had been feeding cabbages or brassica to sheep for years

changed to another breed (of sheep) and encountered all sorts of problems with mineral in balances

** sorry no info on your query

Cran

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

I intend to grow cabbage for this years lambs for shows and especially sales.

Don't take this to personally, but I really hope your involved in a different sheep breed than I am. I wouldn't like farmers to be buying cabbage feed rams at the society sales and having bad experiences of the breed.....

Arrow in the Knee

Hello Cran,
In my experience commercial sheep farmers want big heads and wide shoulders. I would never use a ram that has big head and shoulders on my cross breed flock. The ould farmers like the status quo and if there our market you have to provide what the market wants.

Hopefully in the future ram buyers will buy on Lambplus performance figures and easy care traits but until then its just as it is.

You could say I could create my own niche market like easycare rams with good figures on a grass based diet but it takes alot of time and effort convincing ram buyers to buy a ram, private sales as 'society sales would be a waste of time when they are beside over done tups'.

I don't intend to have the rams ad-lib on cabbage but I do want the rams with a muscular head with a good muzzle around the nose.

Cran

Fair enough completly different approach to mine, but everyone to their own and best of luck we're all sheep men at the end of the day.
I wasn't talking about grass based diet only, have seen to many animals advertised as grass only feed which is just not true when you see the animals.

I lamb 800 ewes each year so thats were my attitude comes from, and going by the wide shoulders / muzzle comments above its defo not the breed I'm involved with.

Arrow in the Knee

Just wondering you must keep a maternal breed ie. Belclare, Chevoit

I'm just hazarding a guess

Cran

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

Just wondering you must keep a maternal breed ie. Belclare, Chevoit

I'm just hazarding a guess

I keep Charollais

Arrow in the Knee

Cran are you on the British Farming Forum?

I've registered on BFF but can't post comments or threads on it.

How long does it take to become accepted or is there something up with it?

Cran

It needs to be authorized and you also need a non free email. I.e not hotmail or gmail

Believe one of the mods here knows one of the mods there and could give them a nudge as theyre not the quickiest. Alternatively pm me your user name and I'll see if I can send them a pm when I login.

Is it suffolks you're breeding?

Arrow in the Knee

Well my Username on BFF is Arrow in the Knee.

I've registered since before Christmas but it seems they are fierce slow!

I have Texels but contemplating to go into Suffolk Breeding as I think they are a more complete breed of sheep. Their growth is very fast when compared to texel. If you only get a 6 cent per kilo bonus in the factory for Texel compared to a week less or more to bring a lamb to dead weight in a Suffolk where prices can drop easily by 20 cent per kilo any given week you have to think the Suffolk are a better animal not mentioning other factors.

razor8

all society rams seems to be either pushed hard on cabbage or cake these days and are not bred with the commercial farmer in mind. Ive bought many the lamb at these sales and always struggle to keep condition on them, you really need to give them 24/7 attention or you could lose them. i for one have lost complete faith in these sales

this year i plan to buy private and have done more research on what feeding breeders are using. there are a few breeders who grass feed and only sell rams as Hoggets

razor8

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

Well my Username on BFF is Arrow in the Knee.

I've registered since before Christmas but it seems they are fierce slow!

I have Texels but contemplating to go into Suffolk Breeding as I think they are a more complete breed of sheep. Their growth is very fast when compared to texel. If you only get a 6 cent per kilo bonus in the factory for Texel compared to a week less or more to bring a lamb to dead weight in a Suffolk where prices can drop easily by 20 cent per kilo any given week you have to think the Suffolk are a better animal not mentioning other factors.

i registered 6 month ago with a non free email address and i am still awaiting approval, username also razor8

Arrow in the Knee

I would not buy a Shearling Ram unless it was born in March or April in his first year. A Shearling Ram born in January/February should have been sold in the year of his birth or else I would suspect that he was slow growing and not up to scratch!

There are pedigree breeders who lamb in March or April and sell rams primarily as Shearlings but their in short supply.

razor8

dont agree, a lot of rams are sold like this in New Zealand. if they are not pushed eg on cabbage or cake etc i accept they wont look as good as ram lambs for obvious reasons but no reason to think they are inferior as shearlings

if they were pushed and kept as shearlings then yes i totally agree, these would be rams to avoid

Arrow in the Knee

But an Irish/UK ram born in January or February should be sold in the year of his birth thats why he was born that early in the year.

But a ram born in March or April would usually go on to be sold as a Shearling the following year irrespective of being creep fed or cabbage fed!

sheeper

Defo would not touch a ram on cabbage or on cake !!!

redzerologhlen

Know feck all about sheep but interested to know what cake is made out of?? Is it just a high protein homemade meal?

razor8

sheeper wrote: »

Defo would not touch a ram on cabbage or on cake !!!

yes but how would you know what they were fed on at a sale?? or do you just avoid the sales?

sheeper

I would definitely buy at a sale . Ask the breeder straight out remember if it turns out your ram melts and your feeding him well then you know he was on cake or cabbage and you talking to other farmers will ruin the breeder chance of selling cabbage fed lambs . I often find the breeders push lambs for the big sale so much less chance of getting a less pushed ram at a smaller sale !!!!

razor8

sheeper wrote: »

I would definitely buy at a sale . Ask the breeder straight out remember if it turns out your ram melts and your feeding him well then you know he was on cake or cabbage and you talking to other farmers will ruin the breeder chance of selling cabbage fed lambs . I often find the breeders push lambs for the big sale so much less chance of getting a less pushed ram at a smaller sale !!!!

ive even seen where they have cabbage in the pens with them at a sale

they should be made declare what feeding their sheep got at a sale or even display it

sheeper

Most breeder will tell you , I think you have a fair idea by looking at a sheep yourself

Arrow in the Knee

By the way everybody is talking, you would think that there is such a stigma attached to heavy feeding and cabbage to tups that no breeder would touch the stuff but that is not the case!

Buyers are so fickle!

sheeper

The buyer is always right,

And I think there is a big difference in my opinion in heavy feeding and cabbage feeding

A buyer can tell if a ram is stuffed but its slightly harder to say if cabbage is fed or not esp for a commercial breeder when the seller is say " no cabbage "

Cran

sheeper wrote: »

The buyer is always right,

And I think there is a big difference in my opinion in heavy feeding and cabbage feeding

A buyer can tell if a ram is stuffed but its slightly harder to say if cabbage is fed or not esp for a commercial breeder when the seller is say " no cabbage "

Agree, feed has its place as it helps show the difference between performance in different animals. I believe cabbage has no place in breeding. Any decent breeder will be honest about what is feed etc..

I lamb in April, lambs are crept for 6 weeks to help identify the poor performers then grass only until November. The lambs get feed from November to march not a whole lot just to get over the winter, and then sold as shearlings.

I m looking for return buyers not russets, even though couple would be nice:)

sheeper

Do you not sell any lambs Cran ?

Username John

Yeah, intrigued as well by your post Cran.

You creep for 6 weeks - to identify poor performers - then what do you do?

What age do you creep feed at?

Sorry OP for taking the thread off on a tangent...

Arrow in the Knee

Do people not think that Cabbage is Healthier than creep fed rams?

razor8

cabbage feeding is fine if you are feeding lambs for killing, but for breeding it disrupts their digestive systems and is much harder for them to adjust to commercial life

sheeper

Cabbage feeding effects the rams fertility

Cran

sheeper wrote: »

Do you not sell any lambs Cran ?

No only sell shearlings, I give access to creep from two weeks. The pedigrees are actually feed with the triplet commercials. I feed for eight weeks last year weaned the good lambs put them out to grass and sold the culls off the ewes or weaned with the commercials from about 12 weeks on or so.

I only started doing his 3 years ago and have kept the majority of my rams so far myself, very happy with these rams so far. Hope to have 4 or 5 shearlings for sale this year and 10/15 or so from next year. Hope there's a few bob in it:p

Arrow in the Knee

Off the topic here, but why do some Charollais breeders shave the face on rams?

Just curious

sheeper

Dunno I was told once that you should pick a Charolais with a good covering on their head b ecause they are hardier! Could be bull

Was reading a site on cabbage feeding and I read that a tup could eat 4/5 heads a day !!! Wow

Cran

Have never come across shaving of faces except with mules. Some people prefer the white face I personally don't and have never found themany hardier....

4/5 head that would be some overhead

sheeper

That's what I was thinking ! But if people grow it who knows