The Old Ram-Australia
Herd Master
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- Jan 18, 2011
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Most of the publicity for Hair breeds is driven by the stud industry as usual .We are in the process transiting to Dorpers with a mix of Black head and Whitehead ,while retaining a few of our English Suffolk’s to infuse the “better “ eating qualities’ of the British Shortwools into a “composite “ type.
All of the headlines talk of “no” shearing, crutching or flystrike in these Hair breeds, but they do come with “some downside”. At the saleyards when they are sold in the same “class” as traditional lambs they do not make the same selling price. At home and in the paddock you need a quite “strong dog” to control them and here I am not talking about half a dozen ewes who all have names. As we have found they are “very hard “on fencing and we have had to up-grade our 7 strand (4 plain/3 barb) to a 10 strand fence, with 3 barbs low down and one on top.
I follow the private sheep sales on Gumtree and increasingly there are small flocks for sale, but the asking prices are nothing short of ridiculous. Who in their right mind would pay over $100 for lambs a few weeks old? When preparing your budgets go to a regional sheep sale (not one on the fringes of a capital city) where they sell 10.000/15,000 head and more each week and set your returns based on these prices. Note where the agents place Hair breeds in their selling runs, as I have yet to see them at the start of a run yet.
If like us you are changing the sheep type you run or are starting out with the new Hair breeds there are one of two paths you can follow. You can invest in a pure bred flock of 100 ewes or you can (like us) start with x-breds and upgrade using better quality rams, this means that you will be doing some shearing to keep them looking clean and limiting the chance of “flystrike”.
On the upside they do seem to do quite well on our lighter country and are “strong” mothers and good foragers. They have taken to the mineral mix readily and the lambs are on it by about 2/3 weeks of age. Almost half of our new flock has come from private sales where they were almost totally hand-fed but have adapted to our place and seem to be “more forward” on our mixed pasture base than they were when they arrived. In our temperate climate they do seem to cycle year round and it appears that almost all of the new ewes were in-lamb when we purchased them, I refer to these lambs as “bonus ones”.
It won’t be until about February til we can sell most of our Suffolk flock, due to the “dry” and the fact that most have lambs at foot. But after that we will be going “full steam ahead “and by this time next year we will know if it has been the right move or not. ..T.O.R.
All of the headlines talk of “no” shearing, crutching or flystrike in these Hair breeds, but they do come with “some downside”. At the saleyards when they are sold in the same “class” as traditional lambs they do not make the same selling price. At home and in the paddock you need a quite “strong dog” to control them and here I am not talking about half a dozen ewes who all have names. As we have found they are “very hard “on fencing and we have had to up-grade our 7 strand (4 plain/3 barb) to a 10 strand fence, with 3 barbs low down and one on top.
I follow the private sheep sales on Gumtree and increasingly there are small flocks for sale, but the asking prices are nothing short of ridiculous. Who in their right mind would pay over $100 for lambs a few weeks old? When preparing your budgets go to a regional sheep sale (not one on the fringes of a capital city) where they sell 10.000/15,000 head and more each week and set your returns based on these prices. Note where the agents place Hair breeds in their selling runs, as I have yet to see them at the start of a run yet.
If like us you are changing the sheep type you run or are starting out with the new Hair breeds there are one of two paths you can follow. You can invest in a pure bred flock of 100 ewes or you can (like us) start with x-breds and upgrade using better quality rams, this means that you will be doing some shearing to keep them looking clean and limiting the chance of “flystrike”.
On the upside they do seem to do quite well on our lighter country and are “strong” mothers and good foragers. They have taken to the mineral mix readily and the lambs are on it by about 2/3 weeks of age. Almost half of our new flock has come from private sales where they were almost totally hand-fed but have adapted to our place and seem to be “more forward” on our mixed pasture base than they were when they arrived. In our temperate climate they do seem to cycle year round and it appears that almost all of the new ewes were in-lamb when we purchased them, I refer to these lambs as “bonus ones”.
It won’t be until about February til we can sell most of our Suffolk flock, due to the “dry” and the fact that most have lambs at foot. But after that we will be going “full steam ahead “and by this time next year we will know if it has been the right move or not. ..T.O.R.
