Charollais vs Suffolk vs Texel

DJ98

The good and bad points about each and which would be your preferance as a terminal sire for a mid season indoor flock.

charolais0153

Have all three. If I was killing all lambs I'd pick charolais.but we sell a few ewe lambs and the texels and bklacks work well for that. Depends on what your doing with the lambs

Green farmer

Have Charley and texel here.For getting them out safely on the ground cannt beat the Charley. After that I have a soft spot for and love seeing a field of texel X lambs thriving away. much quieter to work with then the Charley.

Country lad

Have texels myself love the look of them as not much dosing compared to other breeds

nagshead

If only it was easier to get a easy lambing texel ram , i have texel x suffolk lambs and char x suffolk lambs , the texel are far better looking and weigh more than the char but the problem was every one had to be pulled , hardy lambs to get up and suck and to take a bit of weather outside but had i not of been in the shed when they lambed i would be down a few lambs i think.

Country lad

Find the same myself most of the ewes needed a hand to lamb

charolais0153

I find you can have a lot more stragglers with the TeX and blacks. Texels are very pretty tho

mcgiggles

Personally I love Texels, we have both texel and suffolk ewes. Okay this was our first year and was a strong learning curve, but we've already decided to stay away from suffolks in future, we just prefer texels. (and suffolks are awful f**king loud!) We did find the suffolks lambed easier though, the only ones we had to pull were Texels. We ran them with a charollais ram and the texel ewes have produced some gorgeous lambs, texel shape with some of that reddish/tan charollais colouring and small heads.. beauties!

Cran

mcgiggles wrote: »

Personally I love Texels, we have both texel and suffolk ewes. Okay this was our first year and was a strong learning curve, but we've already decided to stay away from suffolks in future, we just prefer texels. (and suffolks are awful f**king loud!) We did find the suffolks lambed easier though, the only ones we had to pull were Texels. We ran them with a charollais ram and the texel ewes have produced some gorgeous lambs, texel shape with some of that reddish/tan charollais colouring and small heads.. beauties!

This is genuine question. Why would you keep a breed with a high lambing assistance requirement? This is what I don't understand about current Texels, why haven't farmers pushed breeders towards easier lambing?

I have 2 Rams due here that have Texel in them, I do see Texel merits but not current lambing ease.

mcgiggles

Cran wrote: »

I have 2 Rams due here that have Texel in them, I do see Texel merits but not current lambing ease.

We only have small numbers but are currently expanding a bit, so as our numbers go up, we will get rid of the few that we had issues with. We only had to pull a few, but one or two were due to inaccurate scanning and feeding the ewe for twins when she only had one, so large lambs. We had a good percentage of our ewes scanned wrong last year, needless to say we won't be going with them lads again for scanning. So we are giving them all a clean slate, seeing how this year goes and then starting to wean out the duds.
To answer your question, sorry for the rambling, we found texels to be easier handled and hardier than the suffolks! we have a few suffolk x and they are calmer than the full suffolks, and lambed just as easily, so not all suffolks are bad

Lano Lynn

DJ98 wrote: »

The good and bad points about each and which would be your preferance as a terminal sire for a mid season indoor flock.

depends on the type of ewe,
if its mules ie mayo mules texel or suffolk suits them better than charollais
cheviotXsuffolk ewes charollais or texel
cheviot ewes suffolk
texel ewes suffolk or charollais

have used texels for over thirty years but bred our ewes to lamb them.
got fed up with dopey dirty suffolks in the 80's
charollais were great but to cold and wet here for them

with regards the lambing difficulty with texels and the charollais delicate I predict a rapid rize in the use of texel x charollais which will evolve into a breed in its own right

Green farmer

[quote="Lano Lynn;


with regards the lambing difficulty with texels and the charollais delicate I predict a rapid rize in the use of texel x charollais which will evolve into a breed in its own right[/quote]


You might be on to something their Lano, but may or may not be everyone's cup of tea. Met a lad a few years ago that was breeding them especially as that. Was getting €350 a piece as hoggets in a ram sale, held directly after pedigrees were finished. Muscular looking sheep they were.

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

You might be on to something their Lano, but may or may not be everyone's cup of tea. Met a lad a few years ago that was breeding them especially as that. Was getting €350 a piece as hoggets in a ram sale, held directly after pedigrees were finished. Muscular looking sheep they were.

Was there any guarantee that both parents were purebred, otherwise you might as well buy a ram lamb in the factory lairage.
If he bred either charolais or texel he'd get a lot more than 350 for hogget rams for the same work

tomwaterford

I do look out for the lighter boned texel with smaller heads myself. ....the biggest problem here is the texel society push (??) For a certain type head in the shows afaik





It world take a huge amount of convincing for me to ever go next or near suffocks again.....gave enough of my life clipping shote off sheep took years to convince father to leave them behind.




As for charolis. ....they are a great cross with the texels imo.....but wouldn't be inclined to keep for ewes. ....purE mad to do anything with the lambs (i may been spoilt with texek/suffocks sheep for years though)

Farrell

tomwaterford wrote: »

I do look out for the lighter boned texel with smaller heads myself. ....the biggest problem here is the texel society push (??) For a certain type head in the shows afaik





It world take a huge amount of convincing for me to ever go next or near suffocks again.....gave enough of my life clipping shote off sheep took years to convince father to leave them behind.




As for charolis. ....they are a great cross with the texels imo.....but wouldn't be inclined to keep for ewes. ....purE mad to do anything with the lambs (i may been spoilt with texek/suffocks sheep for years though)

Have only had 1 dirty assed Suffolk lamb (he's an undernourished twin pet) in past 7 years, was I just lucky?
Best thing on Suffolk is you can keep replacements as well as good lambs for selling.
Have a Texel for this year ... See how that goes

Lano Lynn

rangler1 wrote: »

Was there any guarantee that both parents were purebred, otherwise you might as well buy a ram lamb in the factory lairage.
If he bred either charolais or texel he'd get a lot more than 350 for hogget rams for the same work

all 'breeds' have evolved from selection for type

'pure bred' is a relativly recent misnomer which genotyping is going to expose some interesting realities.

we as breeders have lost much of the skills and knowledge of those who developed what we call breeds today

irrospective of whether the parents are 'pure bred' or not as long as they have the attributes desired and rigourous selection is applied a new 'breed' will evolve over time.

it is arguable that involving three or more 'breeds' in the mix makes the stabilisation of the breed (or hybrid) more difficult

got to admit to having had a lot of enjoyment out of using non pure bred rams.....its always exciting to see how he breeds.....somehow always expecting a disaster but that can happen with a 'pure bred' to