Vendeen,Belclare or Lleyn

mark 6910

Hello, I was just wondering which ram is the best.We have 2 Texel Rams for the main flock of 125 ewes which are mainly Suffolk cross, Texel cross and Galway cross ewes. We also have a Suffolk ram for 35-40 ewe lambs which are sold as second crop ewes. For as long as I can remember we have kept either Suffolk or Texel Rams. I am going to sell one of the texels this year but I am not sure if I will replace him with a vendeen, belclare or lleyn. I would probably pick the vendeen but we used to keep bred rouge sheep and they were bad on the feet and are they similar to the vendeen. I have also heard that belclare sheep have a lot of triplets so I don't know about them either I just want to know the advantages and disadvantages of the three breeds from someone who has experience with these breeds or is there other breeds of ram you would recommend for producing good lambs for breeding or for the factory. Thank you

DBB

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DBB

mark 6910

DBB wrote: »

Moved from Animals & Pets. Please note, a different charter now applies.
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DBB

Thanks could not find farming topic

Future Farmer

Llyen hands down for me....

ganmo

Vendeen would be considered terminal
belclare and llyen would be maternal
so do you want better ewes or lambs out the gate quicker?

mark 6910

Future Farmer wrote: »

Llyen hands down for me....

Are the lambs easy to finish

mark 6910

ganmo wrote: »

Vendeen would be considered terminal
belclare and llyen would be maternal
so do you want better ewes or lambs out the gate quicker?[/ A bit of both really I sell about 40 ewe lambs as second crops every year but I sell the rest of the lambs in the factory so I don't know do the vendeen produce stronger ewe lambs than the lleyn or belclare

rangler1

mark 6910 wrote: »

ganmo wrote: »

Vendeen would be considered terminal
belclare and llyen would be maternal
so do you want better ewes or lambs out the gate quicker?[/ A bit of both really I sell about 40 ewe lambs as second crops every year but I sell the rest of the lambs in the factory so I don't know do the vendeen produce stronger ewe lambs than the lleyn or belclare

vendeen wouldn't be popular as ewes...grow too big. wooly heads, not graet milkers but are prolific.
Lleyns here work well as ewes but we find the ram lambs get mature young so we ring them at a day old to castrate them and they do grand for the factory

mark 6910

rangler1 wrote: »

mark 6910 wrote: »

vendeen wouldn't be popular as ewes...grow too big. wooly heads, not graet milkers but are prolific.
Lleyns here work well as ewes but we find the ram lambs get mature young so we ring them at a day old to castrate them and they do grand for the factory

So lleyn is probably the best option for us. Is there any other breeds ye would recommend? Are lleyn sheep easy-care or not?

rangler1

Lleyn are not a big breed so you have to be aware of that. ie cross them with something bigger. We cross them back and forth with growthy texels here, that way you have the size of the texel and the prolificacy and the easycare attributes of the Lleyn

mark 6910

rangler1 wrote: »

Lleyn are not a big breed so you have to be aware of that. ie cross them with something bigger. We cross them back and forth with growthy texels here, that way you have the size of the texel and the prolificacy and the easycare attributes of the Lleyn

They would be crossed with mainly Suffolk and Suffolk x Texel ewes and a few Texel and Galway ewes they are all very strong sheep or I might put the lleyn with the ewe lambs which are all texels or Texel cross. They would weigh about 55-60 kilos

rangler1

mark 6910 wrote: »

They would be crossed with mainly Suffolk and Suffolk x Texel ewes and a few Texel and Galway ewes they are all very strong sheep or I might put the lleyn with the ewe lambs which are all texels or Texel cross. They would weigh about 55-60 kilos

The Suffolk cross texel would breed good lleyns too

stantheman1979

Agree with rangler the lleyn are super sheep. They make good mothers with nice heads and you would have a nice hogget to sell when crossed with suffolks. There is no such thing as easy care sheep IMO (even tho there is a breed called easy care lol) you get outta them what you put in, aldough some give less problems than others. I wouldn't rule out the belclare. They will increase lambs on the ground which is what its all about. This talk of too many triplets is OTT in my opinion. If you dont let the ewes get too pure then they wont have too many triplets. You only need a small bit of belclare in you're ewes for the multiple gene to work. We have 850 mainly belclare ewes here. weve let some of them get almost pure and would have a lot of lambs from them but half and quarter breds will nearly always have 2.

orm0nd

stantheman1979 wrote: »

Agree with rangler the lleyn are super sheep. They make good mothers with nice heads and you would have a nice hogget to sell when crossed with suffolks. There is no such thing as easy care sheep IMO (even tho there is a breed called easy care lol) you get outta them what you put in, aldough some give less problems than others. I wouldn't rule out the belclare. They will increase lambs on the ground which is what its all about. This talk of too many triplets is OTT in my opinion. If you dont let the ewes get too pure then they wont have too many triplets. You only need a small bit of belclare in you're ewes for the multiple gene to work. We have 850 mainly belclare ewes here. weve let some of them get almost pure and would have a lot of lambs from them but half and quarter breds will nearly always have 2.

stan what do X back off the belcalre for breeding ? have 60 ewes lambing to belclare this time hope to keep most of the ewe lambs

had some (bel) this year off mixed breeds , had some off pure lleyn & though they stayed abit on the smallish side

stantheman1979

About 95% of our ewes have belclare in them. Half are 3/4 or even purer. The rest will have Suffolk, lleyn and a few Charolais( which I don't like) in them.We only keep lambs with belclare in them. We work our ewes hard so they aren't too big and don't have too many quads. Usually about 140 triplets rest mainly twins. Everything goes out with 2 lambs the rest are reared on the auto feeder. You don't need to have big brutes of ewes to rear 2good lambs.