Hair sheep vs wool sheep

[NorthfieldNick]

Mark,

 

I'm not Bill, but I do make (most of) my living on sheep.

 

It's growth rate that counts, not adult size. My older Cotswold (a heritage breed) ram tops the scales at close to 300 Lbs at 3 yrs old. He's HUGE! My biggest ewe weighs 230 Lb, the smallest about 190 Lb. They're enourmous sheep. However, my ewes don't mature until they're 2, my ram seems to have quit growing this summer. They are a very slow maturing breed. The lambs weigh about 100 Lbs at a year old. (I raise them for breed preservation, wool, and because they are the EASIEST sheep I've ever dealt with). My production cross-bred lambs mature much faster. My Jan-Feb lambs should finish in Nov-Dec- some I'll hold until the spring. I should say I don't grain my sheep- they're entirely grass-fed, maybe some hay if the winter is bad. I'm looking to buy a Texel ram next year- my friend has one & her lambs look amazing!

[Bill Fosher]

There is generally a positive correlation between mature size and average daily gain, but the Dorper rams we were using were the same weight (within a 25 lb range) of the Texel rams we were using. As Ben points out, there are some breed differences. Both groups of rams were between 200 and 250 lbs. If I recall correctly the two biggest were Dorpers at 240 and 250, and the smallest was also a Dorper at 200. The Texels were clustered right around 225. The ewe flocks were also similar in size -- right around 140 to 150 lbs. So mature size of the sire shouldn't have been very much of a factor.

 

What there isn't (or shouldn't be) is a correlation between mature size and feed conversion, and we found that the Dorper sired and Katahdin reared lambs were very poor converters of feed post weaning compared to the Texel sired and longwool cross reared lambs. Essentially, slower growing lambs should eat less. When we raised them in confinement, the hairsheep lambs too about 40 percent more feed and nearly twice the amount of time to grow from 75 lbs to 120 lbs. And even then, most of them never made it all the way to 120 -- we marketed a lot of them as light slaughter lambs at 95 to 105 lbs if they had decent cover and some degree of finish.

 

To a certain extent, this disadvantage was minimized when they were reared on pasture. It wasn't so much that they did better, but the wool lambs didn't blow them away by as much.

[sheepandakom]

That's great to hear about the Texel/wool crosses. I bred my Cheviot ewes to my BL ram this year hoping to cross them to either a Texel or a Dorper ram. I was really leaning toward the Texel and I think you've helped me make my decision, but they are so darn hard to find. I won't need one until next fall, but there don't seem to be many Texel breeders. Also, does anyone have any experience crossing a Dorper ram with wool ewes? I love my little flock for working the dogs. The Cheviot ewes are really light and the BL's ( because they're spoiled show sheep who were never worked with a dog until recently) are pretty heavy. I've got one ewe who will walk across the pasture to challenge a dog.

 

Emily

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

It would probably be a good idea to stick with your BL/Cheviot cross. I did some of those and they make excellent mothers and the survivability is good if you select for that (the BL brings that down some, but improves the frame).

 

And I highly recommend crossing those on a Texel if you can find it, or any other terminal-type wool breed, as opposed to the hair. I did the Dorper over commercial wool ewes for a few years, and I was suddenly faced with the fact that I was decreasing the quality of my market lambs, and was even damaging what I liked best about my ewe flock - low maintenance, easy lambing, high parasite resistance, heavy milkers, easy keepers.

 

My second generation wool/hair cross ewes were just not good - unthrifty, they grew very slowly and so did their lambs, and their lambs were weird and weedy looking on excellent feed (I had just twelve ewes on twelve acres my first few years). I also hadn't understood that you couldn't just breed hair to wool, cull the woolly lambs, and then produce a hair flock with wool characteristics in a couple generations. For one thing, it takes a year for a lamb to shed out its coat so that you know whether it's hair or wool or half and half or part hair or part wool. Needless to say it was an experiment that bombed miserably. I'm still trying to weed out the results of that adventure out of my flock.

[Guest WoobiesMom]

Ignore me, I am an idiot, posted in the wrong place because my mind is not here tonight.

 

Stupid geep!

[Pipedream Farm]

Life sure can be interesting. After the finals Renee and I decided to replace some of our Katahdins with wool sheep. We've purchased Romney's from our neighbor in the past and really liked them; we decided to get more this year. After Montpelier we had a message from our neighbor saying that due to health reasons he is liquidating his small flock of commercial Romneys (bred ewes, lambs, and ram) and asked if we were interested in any. I called back with my answer, YES. I was told that they may cut us a neighbor deal on some sheep. The flock has been at this location for over 30 years; they purchased it from the farmer that owned the pasture where we built our house. Then the light bulb went on; hmmm unused pastures right over the fence. I called back and asked what they were going to do with their soon to be empty pastures and would they be willing to rent them. We've been wanting to increase our flock but needed more land to do it. So now were waiting until they get back to us on the pastures; what we do next hinges on their answer. If we can rent their pastures we'll probably buy their entire flock instantly doubling our numbers.

 

Mark (waiting.........)

[NCStarkey]

Mark wrote:

 

"We've been wanting to increase our flock but needed more land to do it. So now were waiting until they get back to us on the pastures; what we do next hinges on their answer. If we can rent their pastures we'll probably buy their entire flock instantly doubling our numbers."

 

I hope that things fall into place to make this work....sounds great!

 

Regards,

nancy