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Waarom heb je niet veel aan te vet gevoerde rammen
Op ’t Specop ben ik al sinds afgelopen jaar opgehouden met het te zwaar voeren van de lammeren. Suffolks moeten wel groeien en dat doen ze niet van lucht en water maar juist met veel ruwvoer en gedoseerd krachtvoer (dat een lage verteringssnelheid heeft) krijg je duurzamere dieren. De prijzen op de show zal ik er niet mee halen maar ik hoop dat mijn klanten tevreden zijn.
In de Farmers Guardian stond vandaag een aardig artikel over de kwaliteit van fokrammen. Het voeren van teveel hardvoer geeft wel mooie grote (“showie”) rammen maar de professionele schapenhouder heeft er als dekram niet veel aan. Lees hieronder maar wat de kenners er van zeggen:
“Australian vet and Charollais breeder, Ian McDougall, described the negative effects of giving rams too much creep or cereals, advising breeders to ‘practice cool testicle management’ instead.
Over-feeding rams causes them to lay fat down, including in their scrotum, so testicles become hotter than the required 4-5degC below the ram’s core body temperature. This destroys semen-producing cells, causing testicles to become soft and small. Read More …
Kelso Ram sales gross just under £2m
THE annual Kelso Ram sales went ahead without a hitch last Friday (September 12), to gross just under £2 million for 4,324 rams sold.
The total number of rams sold was down by 760 on the 2006 sale representing an 80 per cent clearance– 5,362 rams had been entered, as due to bluetongue restrictions some of the consignors were precluded from attending.
However, the year’s overall average price was £457.56, £33 up on the 2006 event.
Secretary of organisers – the Border Union Agricultural Society – Ron Wilson said he was very pleased that a sale had gone ahead this year, unlike 2007 when foot-and-mouth movement restrictions led to its cancellation alongside.
Recent heavy rain also failed to deter entries – two breeders swam their rams over the River Till from the Beaumont Valley in north Northumberland.
Registered Texels, which dominated the sale with 1,248 rams sold, led the day’s trade at £8,000 for a shearling from Jim Clark and sons – Alan, Andrew and David, North Garngour, Lesmahagow.
Solwaybank ram tops Edinburgh Suffolk Society sale at 32,000gns
THERE was a top price of 32,000gns, a 70 per cent clearance and an average of £2,407 for 159 sold at the first Suffolk Sheep Society sale of the season held at Ingliston, Edinburgh.
Leading the trade was a ram lamb from the Solwaybank flock owned by 28-year-old Iain Barbour, Annan, Dumfries and Galloway. The ram is by Baileys Bugatti, out of a ewe by Glenhead Grandmaster and grand dam by Glenisla Grimaldi.
Top priced ram from Iain Barbour, Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, which sold for 32,000gns .
Returned compliment
The buyer was Tom and Jeff Bailey, Co. Meath, Eire, and late in the sale Iain Barbour returned the compliment paying 5,000gns for a Baileys ram lamb by Rhaeadr Rossi.
Mr Barbour led a string of new and younger vendors, including Gary Beacom, Kesh, Co. Fermanagh, who achieved 15,000gns for his ram by Shannagh Shergar, out of a dam by Strathisla Kingsway, jointly purchased by Brydon Nicholson, Innfield, Shetland and Robbie Wilson, Turiff, Aberdeenshire.
Selling three rams each Mr Barbour and Mr Beacom netted the highest averages, of £11,585 and £6,020, respectively, while Robbie Wilson nipped in a close third, averaging £5,973 on a powerful team of ten.
Mr Wilson sold two of the six five-figure rams sold. Firstly the show champion – this year’s Royal Highland breed champion, a ram lamb by Strathisla Speed, out of a ewe by Glenho Gurkha with grand dam by Glenisla Godfather.
The hammer fell at 25,000gns to Alfred and Norman Robinson, Benrafton, Co. Down. Mr Wilson sold a second Speed lamb, this time out of a dam by Bawnogue Blazing Star for 10,000gns to G. Stuart, Birness, and R.H. Black, Collesie, Fife.
Belgian buyer
Fourth on the averages and third highest price – 20,000gns – went to Jimmy Douglas, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, when Belgian buyer Claude Vanwijnsberghe, Waregem, used a strong euro to secure Douglas’ first in ring, a ram by Cairness Renovator, out of a dam by Stockton Stardust and grand dam by Fordafourie Lochnagar.
With the largest consignment of the day Mr Douglas averaged £4,625 on 11 sold, including two selling at 7,000gns.
The sale’s sixth five-figure ram selling at 11,000gns was from Myfyr Evans, Llanrhaeadr, Denbighshire.
His consignment of five also picked up the red ribbon in the pen of three class.
The 11,000gns ram was by Thurston Calzaghe and out of a dam by Plasllewelyn Prince of Wales and sold to father and daughter, Chris and Sally Holmes, Broadway, Worcestershire.
Also out of the pen of three came another ram by Calzaghe, realising 5,000gns selling to J.K. Teare, Isle of Man, while Hazel Martindale of Landale, Lockerbie, took home Evans’ fourth prize ram lamb, by Baileys Blockbuster for 8,000gns.
The pace of the sale was set when two lots from the first consignment in the ring from C.A. Proctor and Co, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, took 5,000gns each. This was for a Strathisla Schumacher lamb purchased by Herbert Stanley, Bawnogue, Co. Laois and a lamb by Deveronside Whistleblower bought by S. and M. Liggett, Carony, Co. Tyrone.
A second prize ram lamb from George Stuart’s Birness flock, Ellon, Aberdeenshire made 7,000gns. The ram by Castlewellan Eyecatcher was snapped up by John Campbell, Thrunton, Northumberland.
Auctioneers: United Auctions.
Click on images
 Winning pen of three |
 Supreme champion |
 20000gns ram from J Douglas |
Farmers Guardian – Solwaybank ram tops Edinburgh Suffolk Society sale at 32,000gns
Flock watch
THIS year Farmers Guardian has teamed up with Novartis Animal Health in a special project to track two sheep farmers over the coming 12 months. In this, the first of our monthly features, JOANNE PUGH visits the two farms – one in the Dumfriesshire hills and the other in Exmoor National Park.
Read this month’s Flock Watch
Get to know more about the farmers involved in flock watch, and watch videos of Peter Delbridge and the Ryder brothers giving a tour of their farms.
View our video from Newton Farm, Dumfriesshire
View our video from Blindwell Farm, Exmoor National Park
On the last Friday of every month, Flock Watch will be re-visiting Peter Delbridge and the Ryder brothers to find out what they have been up to and what issues are currently affecting their sheep enterprises.Experts from Novartis Animal Health will be taking an in-depth look at the major health and management issues affecting the farms as the year progresses, offering help and advice that will apply to many sheep units across the country.Don’t miss February’s Flock Watch, which will focus on the rapidly approaching lambing period on both farms.
Farmers Guardian – Easy care is the way forward at Buccleuch
Easy care is the way forward at Buccleuch
Livestock – FG 11 January, 2008
New Zealand sheep breeding technology has combined with easy care sheep management in the Scottish borders to market breeding stock and to play a key part in an integrated programme supplying new season lamb to a major UK retailer. NEIL RYDER found out more on a visit to Selkirk.
When a Scottish-based farming company started looking at moving toward an easy care sheep system there was little thought of an international link-up geared to supplying a major retailer with new season lamb 52 weeks of the year.
(…)
The next stage for Buccleuch is the introduction of Primera tups for use on the Highlander cross dams. Primera are also being tried experimentally on 40-50 Charollais ewes to see if there is potential for exploiting the easy lambing characteristic of the Charollais and to enhance the carcase quality of the finished lambs.
At Buccleuch the Primera is being used on Highlander ewe lambs, which will then be put back to the Highlander next year to produce females as breeding stock. Meanwhile, putting cross bred breeding ewes back to the Highlander will lead to upgrading to a pure commercial Highlander flock.
Under the revised system ewes are housed from February as before, but, as long as conditions allow, are turned out to lamb with as little assistance as possible.
Mr Doig said: “M&S policy is to have new season lamb on their shelves 52 weeks of the year, but it is clear that this could not be achieved from British lamb alone. Their team talked to New Zealand producers and liked the product from the Primera tup on the Highlander dam.
The Primera is a terminal meat sire based on Suffolk, Poll Dorset, and Australian White Suffolk bloodlines.
“They also found that their requirement of some 350,000 lambs over a six month period could be supplied by about 100 New Zealand farmers. The aim is to match this for the other six months from UK farmers using the same breeding system to give them a consistent product
“In New Zealand the explosion in dairying on the lower ground has tended to push sheep production more and more on to the higher ground where conditions can be similar to areas such as the Scottish Borders and Cumbria’s Lake District.
“New Zealand systems have for a long time naturally selected for ease of management. This is taken further by some farmers, including the Rissington nucleus flocks, which operate completely commercial un-shepherded lambing systems and rely on DNA parentage testing to identify sire and dam for selection purposes.
“In spite of this the main Highlander nucleus flock of 3,500 ewes achieved 177 per cent lambing last year. This type of system would not transfer easily to the UK as it stands, but does mean New Zealand breeding is well matched to UK easy care systems.
“The only other key difference is that in New Zealand sheep are fed grass only, whereas in the UK some additional feeding, including concentrates, is widely used.
Farmers Guardian – Easy care is the way forward at Buccleuch
Bezoek de site van de fokkers van de Primera: http://www.rissington.com/uk/home
D5 Creation