Wool shedding Sheep – breeding stock for sale

Wool shedding sheep are the fastest growing sector in the UK today, developed with the aim of improving welfare and reducing management time and inputs.  We have been breeding wool shedding sheep since 2010.   These “hair sheep” shed their wool naturally in the spring and so they do not need sheering or dagging.  They reduce the need for routine chemical treatment for fly-strike, and do not get cast on their back or stuck in brambles like woolly sheep.  There is also no need to tail dock.  Over the years we have used Wiltshire Horns, Exlanas and many home bred rams to develop our wool shedding flock.

Our sheep are very easy lambing and well suited to lambing outdoors.  For years we have lambed over 350 ewes (including over 100 ewe lambs) and rarely intervene in more than 2 or 3 lambings per year.  However good conformation is also important! Our carcasses are predominantly R grades with maybe 10-15% U grades.  We consistently wean April born lambs in July with an average weight of 35-39kg, having had no feed other than grass to ewes or lambs.

These sheep suit many situations:

• Farmers looking to reduce inputs and management costs whilst improving sheep welfare.
• Organic and extensive systems where sheep are difficult to supervise closely.
• Outdoor lambing.
• Farmers who find it difficult to get reliable local shearers.

Our flock is run on a strict 1 strike and out policy for most problems.  We are selecting for easy lambing maternal traits, good feet and conformation.  We use our best homebred rams in combination with high EBV rams purchased at the Exlana/SIG ram sales.   Over the years we have also introduced Charollais and Blue Texel blood to maintain good carcase traits.

We sell ewelambs for breeding between August and October.  We also select the best of our ram lambs (on growth rate and phenotype) for sale as commercial breeding rams.  If you are interested in breeding stock it is usually best to contact us in the summer.  We can easily organise delivery of stock to other parts of the UK and favour selling to buyers who take all of our surplus females, or larger numbers of rams.