Sheep people....Bottle fed lamb to market?

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Sheep people....Bottle fed lamb to market?

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pink bouncy

Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 174

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 8:56 pm Post subject: Sheep people....Bottle fed lamb to market?

Sheep are selling really well this year which in my terms meant unaffordable. We were hoping to buy cull ewes to grow on for mutton (yum) for between £30-£50 each but they were selling at £80+ so we bought some spare lambs for £10 each and bottle fed them instead. We have ten, six northern mules and four Texel x.

It was fairly labour intensive at first. We kept them in an outbuilding with a heat lamp until they were down to two bottles a day then took them up to the field and weaned them onto grass and course mix.

That was back in March. They're all doing fairly well, the Texel crosses are bigger and chunkier than the mules but that isn't surprising.
My questions are, when to sell? And as what? Should they go as stores or as butcher's lambs? Do Texel cross gimmers sell as potential breeding ewes or is that only the mules?

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18421

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 9:01 pm Post subject:

Hm, I'd sell the Texel cross lambs as butchers lambs.

I do know some folk who keep a few of their own home-bred Texel X gimmers for breeding stock, but that's because they know exactly what the parentage/conformation etc is.

Texel crossed with what, BTW ?

Again, I have friends whose new breeding stock one year was Texel X Scottish Blackface (newly-bought Texel tups on their own Blackie hill ewes), but that's a different kind of cross-breed from a Texel as terminal sire.

pink bouncy

Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 174

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 9:16 pm Post subject:
Up here (I'm in North Yorkshire on the moors) the standard cross is Swaledale cross Blue Faced Leicester which is known as a Northern Mule. They get crossed to the Texel to make very good butcher's lambs. The difference in size between the Texel crosses and the Mules is surprising.

pink bouncy

Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 174

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 9:54 pm Post subject:
Heres a pic we took yesterday...

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18421

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 10:24 pm Post subject:

Same idea as what more usually happens here :
Scottish Blackface x Bluefaced Leicester = Greyface (Scotch Mule)
Greyface x Texel or Suffolk = prime lambs

We lamb in April and sell from November onwards.
At about 40kg live weight.
If you haven't got scales (!), one old farmer's rule of thumb was when you can't lift them over a stone dyke any more cos they're too heavy, then they're ready to sell. I haven't tried this method, and wouldn't recommend it, but I can see what he meant.
Feel along back and spine.
Use those conformation / condition scores - MLA website ? can't remember

There's a peak of supply at some point after November, as everyone's lambs become ready for market, and the price drops sharply.

Check mart prices in your area if you are trying to maximise income.

Trick is trying to either produce early, or delay till spring (later lambing or a slower-growing breed/cross, but with higher costs of overwintering).

Also, getting them away to market before they get overfat (if they do, then you wait till their next growth spurt when they lose the fat again).

ninat

Joined: 01 Feb 2009
Posts: 606
Location: Scotland

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 12 10:43 pm Post subject:
We bottle fed 4 lambs- charolais, bluefaced leicester and 2 suffolks. Kept the charolais and blue face til the november, and the suffolks until 18 months before slaughter.The tase was great but the older Suffolks were better. There will be people around who want hogget for meat, so you may find a market to sell that way, if word gets around....

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