Crossbreed ram

Youngshepherd wrote: »

I have a pb suffolk organised star rated and everything also have the x ram organised aswell he looks more suffolk than cheviot to be honest hes a good muscled lamb born in February. Would i be better off having them lamb in January? I was planning on lambing them in late February and early march as it suits the system we have on farm

If the project is about "performance at grass", i'd lamb later when grass will be available for them, if not then whatever suits.

rangler1 wrote: »

Copied from a teagasc report:
I think they always promoted the third cross in suckling too, which confirms what you're saying

''The Blackface ewe forms the basic for producing replacement stock for many lowland producers. They are crossed regularly with Bluefaced Leicesters, Border Leicester, Cheviot and Belclare to produce highly prolific ewes that are compact and easily maintained. Research completed at Teagasc Athenry, rated the Mule and the Greyface second and third of all breeds on prolifacy , with the Belclare rated first. The blackface ewe plays a major role in contributing to the success of both the mule and greyface as a highly productive and hardy ewe. This first cross ewe in turn should be crossed with a meat sire to produce an ideal lamb for the French market or the light trade, while availing of the hybrid vigour of the three way cross''

It doesn't, it just reads poorly. I read the very same thing and made the exact same mistake.
There is hybrid vigour in a 3 way cross, which the above takes advantage of. But hybrid vigour will be most prevalent in the initial 2 way cross from purebred stock. So just to give an example on a makeshift measure of HV, a 2 way purebred cross on both sides gets 10 out of 10 for HV. A 3 way cross is 9/10, 4 way cross is 8/10 etc etc. So hybrid vigour does exist in 3 or 4 way crosses, and you can take advantage of it, as in the above, but it isn't where it is most effective. However, that is strictly speaking in terms of HV. Putting the terminal sire on the mule will produce a better lamb etc, but that is a different from hybrid vigour.

fanadman1 wrote: »

My belive of the crossing of the mule to a terminal was that you were hopeong to get the best qualitys of both rather than the hybrid vigor lambs that would get up wuickly and finnish quickly i never thought this as hv mabey im wrong

Id agree. Mixing the qualities of different breeds is different to HV. A lamb out of a terminal sire will have a better carcass because his father is a texel rather than because of hybrid vigour. That isn't to say that there wont be an amount of hybrid vigour present, there will be. But speaking strictly in terms of HV, you will get a stronger response in the first cross. I know it is kind of counter intuitive, you would expect introducing even more genes would increase the HV factor even more but that isn't how it works.

Think about it, if the introduction of more and more breeds increased hybrid vigour, then the sheep to have would be ones with about 30 different breeds in the mix, wouldn't it?

ganmo wrote: »

i was told 7 breeds works the best

For hybrid vigour? Why would that be?

The scientific description of hybrid vigour was given earlier in the thread. With the effects dissipating with each cross until, at the 16th cross, no effect is noticeable. When you consider that, then how can it be anything other than the first cross being the strongest?

Well what project are you at?

Is it Leaving Cert or thesis for a Masters?

How'd this ever pan out youngshepard

Crossbred rams lead to large variations in the offspring. Some small, some big, some white face some black. It makes your end product come out poorily, like you have no understanding of how genetics work. If youre seeking just a big ram than maybe youre ok with say a texel
cross suffolk but if it has any blood that will throw out small lambs like belclare or blackface mountain then you have a serious problem

Could you post it up in numbers or % on her please like % both scanned at and % weaned at and % losses and % gone in first batch till factory etc thanks.