5 star texel rams

brownswiss

http://www.sheep.ie/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/LambPlus-Sale-2014.pdf.... I was looking at star ratings for the texel rams . Can anyone explain the ratings. How can a ram with a 5 star replacement rating have a minus for daughter's milk. Not sure if I am reading it correctly but I think I see one ram in the top 7% and another ram in the top 30% but I can not figure out why

sheeper

They are hard to figure out alright , Often see rams with great figure and they are terrible sheep which is even more crazy ! My advice is buy the ram you like , ignore the figures , once you have the magic 3 stars you get paid ,

rangler1

Any one at the 5star sale in Tullamore today, not many charolais/suffolk breeders had to take €400 or even 500, they went very well.
I averaged €450 for three rams, so happy enough. charolais breeder always live in a better economy than vendeen breeders:D

Cran

rangler1 wrote: »

Any one at the 5star sale in Tullamore today, not many charolais/suffolk breeders had to take €400 or even 500, they went very well.
I averaged €450 for three rams, so happy enough. charolais breeder always live in a better economy than vendeen breeders:D

Good to hear, I might have missed a opportunity today but commercials had to take the Priority this Saturday and next few bit behind after losing few Saturdays to different things. Tbh good demand at the house so far, was there many farmers traveling a distance to it?

rangler1

Cran wrote: »

Good to hear, I might have missed a opportunity today but commercials had to take the Priority this Saturday and next few bit behind after losing few Saturdays to different things. Tbh good demand at the house so far, was there many farmers traveling a distance to it?

I was surprised that you weren't there alright, good few chars made over 600 and up to 700....hard to get that sort money in the yard at home, texels went up to 900 I THINK and a Suffolk made 1000, there might have better prices as I didn't see them all

Cran

rangler1 wrote: »

I was surprised that you weren't there alright, good few chars made over 600 and up to 700....hard to get that sort money in the yard at home, texels went up to 900 I THINK and a Suffolk made 1000, there might have better prices as I didn't see them all

Some money 900/1000 at a commercial sale

Well done today worth the journey and nice feeling when sell everything

Lano Lynn

thought there was a very poor attendance,not many traveling far to the sale.
If teagasc had not bought so many sheep 17? and ballyhaise3 or 4 could be a different story. only 3 vendeens at the sale all bought by teagasc.

texels were very mixed some good sheep some very poor.
twas good big growthy sheep that made the 800+
if he breeds well and last 4 or five years the 'dear sheep' very quickly becomes a cheap sheep particularly if keeping females of him...............
but a wrong one is dear at any money
saw a lot of physicaly poor sheep of all types sold just because they had stars that should have had their throats cut months ago .

considering most of those charolais and suffolks have been eating meal since last january ya would need 500euro to justify the hastle n expense
and when xbred hoggets making 200euro and lots of lambs sold over 100 euro the ram breeders need and deserve a fair price......they are farmers to.....

credit where credit is due the sheep ireland lads put in alot of effort for the sale and they and the mart staff give a great service on the day pens all bedded and plenty help to and from pens loading and unloading .....thank you lads......assuming they read this forum:)

sheeper

Any one know that lots teagasc purchased or is there any way to find out. , Would be good to see !

rangler1

sheeper wrote: »

Any one know that lots teagasc purchased or is there any way to find out. , Would be good to see !

I saw them gathered together in a pen at the end of the day, a fantastic pen of rams, they had the farm manager there and he scrutinised every pen,
A neighbour of mine bought one of the best looking rams in the sale, I was wondering why teagasc didn't buy him....when we pulled him out on the concrete, one of back legs was wrong, I never saw pastles as down in a lamb.
very poor form on the breeder and the lamb should've never got in to the sale

rangler1

Lano Lynn wrote: »

thought there was a very poor attendance,not many traveling far to the sale.
If teagasc had not bought so many sheep 17? and ballyhaise3 or 4 could be a different story. only 3 vendeens at the sale all bought by teagasc.

texels were very mixed some good sheep some very poor.
twas good big growthy sheep that made the 800+
if he breeds well and last 4 or five years the 'dear sheep' very quickly becomes a cheap sheep particularly if keeping females of him...............
but a wrong one is dear at any money
saw a lot of physicaly poor sheep of all types sold just because they had stars that should have had their throats cut months ago .

considering most of those charolais and suffolks have been eating meal since last january ya would need 500euro to justify the hastle n expense
and when xbred hoggets making 200euro and lots of lambs sold over 100 euro the ram breeders need and deserve a fair price......they are farmers to.....

credit where credit is due the sheep ireland lads put in alot of effort for the sale and they and the mart staff give a great service on the day pens all bedded and plenty help to and from pens loading and unloading .....thank you lads......assuming they read this forum:)

Would agree, but very hard to get vendeens over 400, they never took off like the charolais.
We like them here, we enjoy the crack of breeding, they work well in the crossbreds, we equal or better the performance of the commercial flocks in teagasc, despite their fancy buying, reseeding, etc.
We only live ten miles from that sale, so it scuttles the demand for rams around here big time, so we have to use it to get rid of a few.
Teagasc did underpin the prices, but it's always the same every year

Lano Lynn

Vendeens very much underestimated vs charollais many won't use them because an irrational stupid phobia about wooly heads.

R.you had three good honest lambs that stood in well with the teagasc pen

I was disapointed there was not more vendeens there but considering there was a good selection last year that got poor buying i cannot blame breeders for not traveling
50euro won't take you far these days n perhaps to take 3/400 for one lamb is high cost equally so for the purchaser it is arguable that more sheep ireland sales spread regionally on regular mart days may be better?

sheeper

It's a bit pointless that teagasc are underpinning a sale sale that sheep ireland are running ! It's really just one dept buying off another department and the breeder paying his €50 to support it
Plenty of sale around the country with STAP rams in it .
I love to see what breeders the teagasc took took the rams out of , surely there is a report going to go up ????

Really feel sorry for the guys living around the Tullamore area with the rams , it will more or less finish their trade !!!! Bit like McDonald's opening beside your local chipper

sea12

rangler1 wrote: »

I saw them gathered together in a pen at the end of the day, a fantastic pen of rams, they had the farm manager there and he scrutinised every pen,
A neighbour of mine bought one of the best looking rams in the sale, I was wondering why teagasc didn't buy him....when we pulled him out on the concrete, one of back legs was wrong, I never saw pastles as down in a lamb.
very poor form on the breeder and the lamb should've never got in to the sale

Did he throw the lamb back rangler.

rangler1

sea12 wrote: »

Did he throw the lamb back rangler.

Yea he threw him up, he gave €670 for him....too much for an incorrect ram

sea12

rangler1 wrote: »

Yea he threw him up, he gave €670 for him....too much for an incorrect ram

Bad form having him submitted when there was something wrong with him.

Sheep breeder

Surely rangler he looked at the lamb before in purchased and when he was in the ring he would have seen the ram on concrete.
Didn't think you could throw up a ram up for wrong pasterns after he had gone through the ring as it would be visible in the ring and is sold as seen!

rangler1

Sheep breeder wrote: »

Surely rangler he looked at the lamb before in purchased and when he was in the ring he would have seen the ram on concrete.
Didn't think you could throw up a ram up for wrong pasterns after he had gone through the ring as it would be visible in the ring and is sold as seen!

He should've never got been allowed in the sale, when you see an inspection, you expect the ram to be correct, the ram was on a generous bed of straw in his pen so was hard to see.....any way he got out without paying for the ram

sheepmad

I heard about a ram been thrown up and the breeder was very disappointed!! He was totally down on 1 pastern and a bit less on the other. Can you imagine how many ewes he would serve?

rangler1

sheepmad wrote: »

I heard about a ram been thrown up and the breeder was very disappointed!! He was totally down on 1 pastern and a bit less on the other. Can you imagine how many ewes he would serve?

Sellers were allowed substitute. he should've left him at home

Cran

sheepmad wrote: »

I heard about a ram been thrown up and the breeder was very disappointed!! He was totally down on 1 pastern and a bit less on the other. Can you imagine how many ewes he would serve?

you should always run a ram out into the passage way if pen is full of straw, no breeder should object to it and tbh most will help you run him out takes 2 minutes. From my experience always 1 or 2 potential other buyers at the pen who are not confident enough to run him out and can help in the sale.

Always remember when a kid buying rams asked a well know breeder whats the best way to pick a ram, 'from the feet up and mouth down' was the answer

Sheep breeder

agree with you cran, the amount of fellas that dont check out a ram before they buy is unreal, they spend the time looking at the name of the breeder and the price that was paid for the stock ram and colour of the dye in the wool and how well he is clipped and never check the basics and when the ram doesnt work out blame the breed for his silly mistake.
as for rams with faults getting into a sale it is all about who you are in the breed society and pecking order.

Sheep breeder

agree with you cran, the amount of fellas that dont check out a ram before they buy is unreal, they spend the time looking at the name of the breeder and the price that was paid for the stock ram and colour of the dye in the wool and how well he is clipped and never check the basics and when the ram doesnt work out blame the breed for his silly mistake.
as for rams with faults getting into a sale it is all about who you are in the breed society and pecking order.

Green farmer

Sheep breeder wrote: »

agree with you cran, the amount of fellas that dont check out a ram before they buy is unreal, quote



I've to buy a stap ram over he next few weeks at a sale. Not looking forward to it. By the sound of it, seems like a mine field spotting all potential faults in a ram, under a constrained time period. I for one haven't developed a good enough eye yet. Cannt buy a lifetime of experience overnight. Just do your best and take a chance !!!

We'll have to stand alongside rangler at a sale sometime for a bit of "education ". :-)

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

Sheep breeder wrote: »

agree with you cran, the amount of fellas that dont check out a ram before they buy is unreal, quote



I've to buy a stap ram over he next few weeks at a sale. Not looking forward to it. By the sound of it, seems like a mine field spotting all potential faults in a ram, under a constrained time period. I for one haven't developed a good enough eye yet. Cannt buy a lifetime of experience overnight. Just do your best and take a chance !!!

We'll have to stand alongside rangler at a sale sometime for a bit of "education ". :-)

Could you make enquiries as to who is sound to buy off, and then buy them privately off them?

I'm only new at this game too. The first job I had when I started was to buy a ram.
I went to a lad who I knew was sound, maybe not cheap, but was very straight. It might sound strange, but he took a bit of time, showed me what to look for in a ram. Then, he picked one which he thought was good, and I picked one, and he went through the good points of both....
He was incredibly helpful to be fair...

So maybe you know someone that you could go to like that?

ganmo

Meself and the ould lad usually go to the ram sales, he has a good eye for the type of sheep but I look for what's wrong with them.
Unfortunately the sheep that we both like usually lots of other people like too

Cran

Username John wrote: »

Green farmer wrote: »

Could you make enquiries as to who is sound to buy off, and then buy them privately off them?

I'm only new at this game too. The first job I had when I started was to buy a ram.
I went to a lad who I knew was sound, maybe not cheap, but was very straight. It might sound strange, but he took a bit of time, showed me what to look for in a ram. Then, he picked one which he thought was good, and I picked one, and he went through the good points of both....
He was incredibly helpful to be fair...

So maybe you know someone that you could go to like that?

Think that's a good fella to be buying off. Think Rangler will agree but when you start breeding pedigrees you find faults in all potential stock rams, it comes down to what fault your willing to put up with. For me though good feet are an absolute must for both stock and commercial rams.

Green farmer

I find buying ewes a lot easier. You don't need to go into as much detail. Your more focused on the breed , abit of length, healthy looking and "a slender female looking head". A lot cheaper per animal, if you make a mistake !

I was going buying at the society sales, basically because of this stap thing and was hoping that the breeders would be bringing their better stock on the day and there'd be some form of quality control ??? In practice not sure if this would make any difference ?

eire23

Cran wrote: »

Username John wrote: »

Think that's a good fella to be buying off. Think Rangler will agree but when you start breeding pedigrees you find faults in all potential stock rams, it comes down to what fault your willing to put up with. For me though good feet are an absolute must for both stock and commercial rams.

yes and good in the mouth as well,its amazing when looking at a sale the amount of rams that have a ever so slightly overshot mouth. Not something that i would be willing to compromise on anyways.

grassroot1

If you want to buy a stap eligible ram, search on the sheep Ireland website for breeders with rams nearby. A ram is only a vessel for genetics, if he has no major faults he should be ok for commercial breeding(feet balls teeth)
Someone mentioned above about overshot teeth but slightly undershot never get pulled up.;)

ganmo

grassroot1 wrote: »

If you want to buy a stap eligible ram, search on the sheep Ireland website for breeders with rams nearby. A ram is only a vessel for genetics, if he has no major faults he should be ok for commercial breeding(feet balls teeth)
Someone mentioned above about overshot teeth but slightly undershot never get pulled up.;)

If you're buyin in replacements I agree the need to be diligent isn't as important.

Slightly Overshot isn't as bad as slightly undershot. The slightly overshot can get very overshot and problematic quickly

rangler1

Cran wrote: »

Username John wrote: »

Think that's a good fella to be buying off. Think Rangler will agree but when you start breeding pedigrees you find faults in all potential stock rams, it comes down to what fault your willing to put up with. For me though good feet are an absolute must for both stock and commercial rams.

It's important that rams are able to walk, eat, and serve.
Very easy to ensure his back legs and his mouth is right.
Fertility is a chance, stress from leaving their siblings can even cause problems.
A lamb mightn't work for the first month and be perfect after.
Green farmer, most of what I've learnt in farming, I've learnt by making the mistakes

brownswiss

Will there be any follow up on the Star rated rams to see if they were rated correctly. Without commercial breeders providing info is the Star rating useless.

Tagging and weighing lambs is a lot of extra work at a very busy time . Lambs from non star rated rams would also need to be weighed and lambing info collected. Ewe lambs from star rated rams would need a special tag and be monitored for a few years

Cran

brownswiss wrote: »

Will there be any follow up on the Star rated rams to see if they were rated correctly. Without commercial breeders providing info is the Star rating useless.

Tagging and weighing lambs is a lot of extra work at a very busy time . Lambs from non star rated rams would also need to be weighed and lambing info collected. Ewe lambs from star rated rams would need a special tag and be monitored for a few years

The Malp and CPT flocks are used for this, believe last year they used some 1 star to see results as well. All info from commercial Malp & CPT flocks feeds into Stars as well believe

serfspup

the results should be on the ground at this stage so how have all your five star rams done?

sheepmad

There has been 2 runs of evaluations done this year and they are all over the place. The ram search is not yet available on the website to see if everyone else has the same issues with the stars.

serfspup

my mistake question was directed more at those who bought rams last year and have lambs on the ground have the rams met expectations etc

sheepmad

Short answer, NO

rangler1

sheepmad wrote: »

Short answer, NO

Not surprised, there has been very poor performance from sheep Ireland from the start, Lambplus is a disaster. breeders aren't sending in information on time...how many reasons do you want

serfspup

rangler1 wrote: »

Not surprised, there has been very poor performance from sheep Ireland from the start, Lambplus is a disaster. breeders aren't sending in information on time...how many reasons do you want

why would late returns effect a rams preformance? surely it is the accuracy of the information supplied that is most important?

rangler1

serfspup wrote: »

why would late returns effect a rams preformance? surely it is the accuracy of the information supplied that is most important?

surely there should be spot checks, how can you check birth date on late information...huge opportunity to manipulate figures if information isn't being sent in as it happens....definitely should be spot checks on birth date.
Only for STAP it'd be dead in the water

rangler1

I did the muscle scan last week on the pedigree lambs.....muscle averaged 37.3mm, fat averaged 1.4mm...quite good for vendeens.
DLG 380gms/ day

Cran

rangler1 wrote: »

I did the muscle scan last week on the pedigree lambs.....muscle averaged 37.3mm, fat averaged 1.4mm...quite good for vendeens.
DLG 380gms/ day

They're excellent figures, what age and average weight are they Rangler? Slightly surprised at the fat average compared to my Charollais is this standard for Vendeens? Doing my own tomorrow be delighted with those numbers

rangler1

Cran wrote: »

They're excellent figures, what age and average weight are they Rangler? Slightly surprised at the fat average compared to my Charollais is this standard for Vendeens? Doing my own tomorrow be delighted with those numbers

Average age 158 days
average weight..rams 66kg
ewes 57kg

What fat average would you expect in the charolais, we'd have very few over fat in the commercials

serfspup

excellent results,great muscle depth.
as a grass based midseason producer I would prefer fatter rams but lambplus does not give us this information
whether lambs are over fat at slaughter depends more on selecting the lambs at the right weight and condition than genetics.
I currently have two vendeen rams one has them finished at <45kg the other you could keep going to 55kg!

I think lambplus scanning should be done closer to 45-50 kg or 14-18 weeks to reflect what commercial producers need.I may be wrong they may wait longer so the difference between measurements is greater
(scanner on the post lotto win shopping list:D)

rangler1

serfspup wrote: »

excellent results,great muscle depth.
as a grass based midseason producer I would prefer fatter rams but lambplus does not give us this information
whether lambs are over fat at slaughter depends more on selecting the lambs at the right weight and condition than genetics.
I currently have two vendeen rams one has them finished at <45kg the other you could keep going to 55kg!

I think lambplus scanning should be done closer to 45-50 kg or 14-18 weeks to reflect what commercial producers need.I may be wrong they may wait longer so the difference between measurements is greater
(scanner on the post lotto win shopping list:D)

Those figures are the progeny of the same rams that I use in the crossbred flock, the lambs of which grade U3/R3. Factories penalise us for overfat. I grow a few on for freezers and like you I can put up the weights without being overfat.
You might have seen Tommy Boland on the Indo giving out about farmers sending in a spring lamb that killed out 32 kg........that was mine, a wrong mouthed pedigree ram lamb that I didn't cop until he was 60kg. even he was a U3.
On the scanning, Sheep Ireland are supposed to do them at 140 days but as vendeens lamb early, you'd need to put a bomb under them to get ours scanned on time. I got fed up waiting and did my cull, put the worst half of the pedigrees in the factory. I killed 6 E's...so my best scanning lambs are probably slaughtered, why they can't scan at 100 days, I don't know.
As you saw, the lambs averaged 60 kg + at the scanning. how could you face going any where with your culls then

In case you haven't guessed I am very critical of sheep Ireland/Lambplus:mad:

serfspup

I wish more breeders were killing half their lambs,

I repeat lambplus should be scanning earlier and the lowest 25% slaughtered even if they have to get a premium to do so, without this there will be no improvement in NATIONAL flock prefomance ie.the sh1t rams still end up breeding and the worst ewes endup in pbnr banging out cheap crap competing with pedigree breeders
the breeding ewes that produce bottom 25% lambs for 2 years should also be culled a slaughter premium(100euro on top of the carcase value) paid
a million euro over say 3-4 years would strip out 10,000 underpreforming sheep

grassroot1

serfspup wrote: »

I wish more breeders were killing half their lambs,

I repeat lambplus should be scanning earlier and the lowest 25% slaughtered even if they have to get a premium to do so, without this there will be no improvement in NATIONAL flock prefomance ie.the sh1t rams still end up breeding and the worst ewes endup in pbnr banging out cheap crap competing with pedigree breeders
the breeding ewes that produce bottom 25% lambs for 2 years should also be culled a slaughter premium(100euro on top of the carcase value) paid
a million euro over say 3-4 years would strip out 10,000 underpreforming sheep

Ya you could do that but farmers would still go out and buy any sort of a screw in October and those of us submit data on time, take the weights and scan(fail to see the value in scanning) wont be paid anymore.

ganmo

serfspup wrote: »

I think lambplus scanning should be done closer to 45-50 kg or 14-18 weeks to reflect what commercial producers need.I may be wrong they may wait longer so the difference between measurements is greater

you're bang on

measuring younger has 2 problems, less variation & not measuring what is wanted

measuring what is wanted is very important, one reason why the tully testing centre is never going to be used again is that they were measuring performance off ration when most people want cattle grazing...loose correlation between ration performance and grazing performance

Cran

rangler1 wrote: »

Average age 158 days
average weight..rams 66kg
ewes 57kg

What fat average would you expect in the charolais, we'd have very few over fat in the commercials

Checked last years there and fat was 0.8 average, but that included 3 lambs by a well know.ram I bought in in-lamb ewes which were 1.4 I personally didn't like them, but defo place for higher fat at times.

Same here in culling I'm scanning 30 out out of 50 tomorrow as can't wait for scanning others were sold to factory weeks ago, was 7th July last year and some of the lambs were 80kilos

rangler1

grassroot1 wrote: »

Ya you could do that but farmers would still go out and buy any sort of a screw in October and those of us submit data on time, take the weights and scan(fail to see the value in scanning) wont be paid anymore.

As I said only for STAP it'd be gone,
The old LMI was very simple, but it was consistent, you could actually improve your flock with it, and if you used high LMI stock, it'd work for you, but this lambplus is a lottery, using 5star stock guarantees nothing, in fact buying a five star only scores him for that day...a joke

Cran

serfspup wrote: »

excellent results,great muscle depth.
as a grass based midseason producer I would prefer fatter rams but lambplus does not give us this information
whether lambs are over fat at slaughter depends more on selecting the lambs at the right weight and condition than genetics.

I would think any breeder would give this information if asked for, just remember to ask age & scan weight to get perspective on figures