Our breeding system has a strong commercial focus, to produce the most profitable and productive rams.  We breed and select our rams on a forage only outdoor lambing at the end of April and beginning of May, with the focus to produce high performing sheep from minimal inputs. Most of our grazing is in Higher Level Stewardship, with some silage aftermaths used for grazing lambs later in the season. We run two pedigree breeds, Hampshire Downs  (27Z) and Lleyns (2616). Both flocks are performance recorded with Signet to identify and select the sheep with the top performing genetics. Our rams are breed to produce easy lambing, vigorous and fast growing lambs.

Hampshire Downs

Our Hampshire flock is our terminal sire line. Along with ease of shepherding at lambing  with highly vigorous lambs, the rams will also add value to finished lambs they sire. Our breeding objectives for the Hampshire’s are to add value through improved carcase value improving conformation and carcase weight while reducing costs and freeing up forage by reducing the days to slaughter of the lambs. We use ultrasound scanning and CT scanning to produce valuable carcase quality information.

We have rams entered into the RamCompare project and also supply our own carcase data into the evaluation, with 8 out of the top 10 Hampshire’s for Lamb Value being a ‘Normanby Ram’. Our Hampshire Down flock is one of the highest genetic merit in the country, with our rams regularly ranking at the top based on Terminal Sire Index. We also like using the Hampshire’s as they colour mark the lambs, so we can easily pick out the commercial lambs. Our Hampshire’s are lambed outside and reared on grass to reflect commercial flock management.

Lleyns

Our Lleyns are our maternal line of sheep. The breeding objectives are a moderate size productive ewe that can utilize poor quality grazing. We use Estimated Breeding Values to select the sheep with the best genetics for prolificacy, milking ability, mature size, fertility and growth. We are looking to produce ‘curve bending’ sheep, that grow fast as lambs, but have a moderate mature weight so we can stock more ewes per hectare. We are part of the Performance Recorded Lleyn Breeders Group (PRLB), and this has also led to our participation in the Breed for Ch4nge project.

Our stock rams are available from July to view and buy.