tucknjill Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Geri, or anyone else out there have experience with Coopworth sheep?..I might have a line on some nice rams and wondered if anyone had any hands on experience with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Our foundation stock is 50 percent Coopworth. I think they're very nice sheep. The rams that sired them came out of British Columbia. My one criticism of the crossbreds (which were also 25 percent Dorset and 25 percent Romanov) was that the Coopworth traits that I liked tended to fade pretty quickly in the second cross, even when bred back to a Coopworth ram. This is generally true of composite breeds, I think. What I like about them is thrift, muscling, and nice wool. They're also generally selected for breeding on the first cycle with the ram, and I have found that trait does seem to carry through. We generally get about 75 percent of our ewes settled in the first heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tucknjill Posted August 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 Excellent! That is just what I needed...I like the fact that her sheep sound like they will be healthy and the rams have a. been proven b. are young 2-3 c. passed their ram fertility test with flying colors. d. Look like good sheep to my novice eye. I am going to her farm on Tues so hopefully my search will be over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeltaBluez Tess Posted August 30, 2005 Report Share Posted August 30, 2005 I have had some coops...great mom, lots of milk, great babies, twinners and protective. Great sheep to work dogs, too much pressure they stop and turn, too weak they just saunter off but correct work you will have a nice flow. I got rid of mine as they do not do well in marsh area. I have Clun Forest and they are great in all sorts of terrain, easy to feed but lambs are not as fast growing the first 9 months as the Coops. I crossed some of my Clun ewes to a Dorper and the lambs at 60 days are bigger than 120 day old lambs...the cross is great!! Diane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Diane... I'll be interested in how you like the Dorper crosses after a while. I crossed to my commercial N.C. Cheviots for two years now, and they look great up to 3 months, then it's like they hit a brick wall, and stop growing. Mine at 9 months with grain only finished at 45-50# hanging weight. The commercial NC's from years past hung at 65# at that age usually without any grain supplements. I am pretty dissapointed, and am going back to a NC ram. Sam... All I remember about the coops from Oregon is thinking they looked like baby hippos running around the course at Sisters in 97. They had been crotched, and with the amount of wool I swear they were wider than tall! I do remember a couple laying down in Nursery when harrassed, and the set out person had a very difficult time going from 1 man-1 dog, to 1 man-2 dogs, to three men, and back and forth with little success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackacre Posted August 31, 2005 Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Did you wean them at 3 months? I used a Dorper ram this year and left mine on the ewes to wean themselves and they continued to grow like horses. Ewes sure look like shit though. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tucknjill Posted August 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 31, 2005 Hmmm well I guess if I hate them I can sell all the lambs this year and go back to Cheviot crosses, or take the lambs and breed them back to a cheviot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeltaBluez Tess Posted September 1, 2005 Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 My Dorper crosses were doing great. The Clun mothers raise them on super rich milk and they just grew like weeds. I had my buyer come out and buy the last crosses and they dressed out at 30. They were 5 months old and grass feed. I weaned them at 60-75 days. No grain at all. He wants lambs to dress out at 30 lbs and was delighted, No fat on these lambs, just like he wanted. He put in order for 15-30 lambs for next yr. I have a super rich, lush pasture for my sheep. The lambs had big heads when they were born, from the ram. The clun lambs usually have small, narrow heads but these crosses had bigger heads. The Cluns had no problems giving birth and all had twins or trips. The cross twins were MUCH, MUCH bigger than the pure Cluns. Pure cluns are very slow to mature at the first yr and then grow fast as yearlings. Do note that my Clun are short and squatty and square and my Dorper looks like a fat fireplug, hence the better weight gain. My Katahdin ram lambs were lean and leggier when crossed to the Cluns. I am selling my Clun ram and the Katadhin ram and keeping the Dorper ram. Diane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Posted September 1, 2005 Report Share Posted September 1, 2005 Yes... I weaned the cheviot/dorper crosses because the ewes were getting thin and I had the opportunity to save my grass by shipping the lambs a couple of miles down the road to free pasture. I'm selling my lambs to co-workers who are interested in biger lamb chops, and legs. The cost of butchering is the same whether it is a 30 pound carcass or a 70 pound carcass, so they want the bigger ones. Besides, I got a lot of horns this year on my lambs... and I hate horns. Won't keep a sheep with horns. (Guess that tells you my stand on GOATS!!!) Very interesting discussion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 My experience with dorper crosses is similar. They will eventually make a very nice 55 to 65 lb carcass, but it takes an incredible amount of feed to crash them through the wall that they hit at about 75 to 80 pounds liveweight. I would guess it's on the order of two to three times what we see in our Texel crosses. I've also have a similar experience to Andrea with some fall-born lambs. We kept them on full feed, and kept the ewes on a high-energy ration from birth to finish, and had a lamb that dressed at 74 pounds at about six months of age. So essentially, if you can push the groceries to them -- either out of the grain bin or off their mothers' backs -- they can do great. But if you let them stall at 75 pounds, it takes an act of Congress to get them going again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca, Irena Farm Posted September 2, 2005 Report Share Posted September 2, 2005 That was my Dorper experience too. I don't have the money to put into feeding lambs. We've been happy with the half Texel rams we got from Bill - we did some selective worming last night and Patrick had trouble picking the weanlings from the yearling replacements. I was going to buy in a ram lamb but I've actually decided to go ahead and use one of these one quarter Texel lambs as a terminal sire this year (don't need to grow the ewe flock until we get more fencing in). We got a splendid one off a Horned Dorset/Blackface/BL cross that's as big as his daddy was this time last year and he's even just a smidge longer and deeper in the loin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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