What breed of ewe to breed for large meaty lambs?

[aggieterpkatie]

I've never heard of the medium Down. I think there's only the regular Southdown and the Old English (babydoll). I've got the regular ones and love them.

 

[secuono]

Yeah a Regular South down would be perfect with a Baby Doll South down. I don't remember how many different Southdown types there are but if I recall there's the Southdown, Medium Southdown and then the Baby Southdown.

What the heck is a medium southdown??

I'd want the other ewes to be hair sheep and polled it at all possible. $75 per sheep to shear every year is $$$. The lambs from the mixes will go straight to freezer, so those mom's won't pay their dues. The pure babydolls pay their keep by their lambs.

I haven't seen regular southdowns either...was hoping to find some ewe lambs that aren't from a fancy breeder since they will be far cheaper.

 

[secuono]

I've never heard of the medium Down. I think there's only the regular Southdown and the Old English (babydoll). I've got the regular ones and love them.

Sell me a ewe lamb next year...?? lol.

 

[feed grass]

medium downs are the super crappy, average southdowns of the large size...

To be honest, I know of about 4 breeds of ewes that have horns-- and about 100 that don't... I don't see where that can realistically be a concern...

To find cheap Southdowns- you just have to look.. i could find a ton around here- but that won't do you any good across the USA. It also helps for you to define "cheap", cheap to me is market price-- which is somewhere in the 2-300 range. Cheap to most people is stealing...

 

[Rvrfshr]

get a regular southdown.

Haven't heard of this breed before. Is this a specialty breed that you have or are contemplating?

 

[kfacres]

get a regular southdown.

Haven't heard of this breed before. Is this a specialty breed that you have or are contemplating?

A regular Southdown is the normal sized sheep virtually identical to these babydolls. They are one of the most common sheep breeds in the US- particularly a hit with young people, and females. Depending on where you go to purchase some-- they can range from just bigger than a babydoll, to twice as big.

http://www.southdownsheep.org/

 

[Symphony]

Yes, Southdowns are everywhere. Just google them and you'll see.

 

[secuono]

I don't show, so I don't want to pay show prices. Anything over $400 for an adult is too much, over $300 for an ewe lamb is too much.
My rams & wethers sold for 150 and 200, so there is little to no market here. I do see some websites for them and they want $400 up to 800, but half of those sites are outdated by up to 4 years.

 

[kfacres]

I don't show, so I don't want to pay show prices. Anything over $400 for an adult is too much, over $300 for an ewe lamb is too much.
My rams & wethers sold for 150 and 200, so there is little to no market here. I do see some websites for them and they want $400 up to 800, but half of those sites are outdated by up to 4 years.

I shipped 150 pound wether lambs last week-- and got $2. per pound for them. That's $300-- and I didn't have a single cent in getting them anywhere-- they were picked up here... Argue with me and tell me that market price isn't there... I have a group of 80 lb lambs, that' I'm thinking of selling for $2.50-- but I'm not sure if I can handle only getting $200 for them...

How can you expect to buy anything for less than slightly above market price to use as a breeding animal??/ Robbery if you ask me, I can see why nobody wants to sell to you- you can't expect them to give their stuff away.

The Southdown breed is diverse, and I could leave my house for one day- and buy a whole 8x20 trailor load of Southdown ewe lambs for $200-$300 bucks a head-- and I can fit ALOT of 'downer lambs on that trailor.

I sell almost my entire lamb crop each year from our Oxford ewes which have been as many as 80 ewes-- and currently number almost 50 for breeding stock. I get very tired of the people who inquire about buying $300 ewe lambs-- I tell them go elsewhere, i'm tired of being taken advantage of; I wouldn't sell bottle ewe lambs for that...

I just bought a new Southdown ram to use on my 'downer ewes- paid $300 for him-- and he would have been a 1k sheep at any other sale... But the Ohio sale was saturated with rams- and nobody wanted them. I think that might be the first deal, or steal I've ever gotten in my time with the sheep.

Sedalia is coming up- and I bet there will be 10 Southdown ewe lambs sell for $300 each or less (I forget what the floor price is- could be $250 on lambs). There will be people there from CA like you wouldn't believe to transport them back for nothing... but hey- what do I know?

 

[Cornish Heritage]

Chirping in here just to say if you are looking for a breeding animal then you need to buy quality. Culls are culls for a reason. We get this question with our Large Black hogs at times - some folks don't want to pay the price so we just politely tell them that we are not the right place for them & to go look somewhere else. We no longer sell any culled 'unfixed' males nor do we sell the female culls. The gilts are all raised here for meat so as to stop the backyard market.