Autumn 2011 Newsletter

Fri, 14 Oct 2011

Now that the sales are over and everyone stocked up for another year we can reflect on another year of progress with a steady increase in the popularity of the ‘Easy Care’.

In spite of a very buoyant trade of lambs and cast ewes during the first half of the year the trade of sheep by mid September when our sales took place was not as high as we anticipated. Worcester sale had twice as many females as last year coupled with a serious shortage of grass in certain areas led to a slight decline in the averages on the two very good previous years. Our prices are now on a par with other commercial breeds and hopefully this will attract the serious prime lamb producers to buy ‘Easy Care’ which indeed some already have with great success. The Northern sale at Carlisle was much better than last year and we are definitely making headway in this most traditional area.

One new customer Mr Richards of Carmarthen bought 36 ‘Easy Care’ ewes at Worcester in 2010 and out of an ‘Easy Care’ ram he had 60 lambs. A sample of the grades are shown below.

Class Weight Class Weight

U3L 21.70 R3L 19.70

R3L 17.90 R3L 20.20

R2 17.50 U3L 20.90

U3L 21.20 U2 18.10

U3L 18.50 E3L 18.10

R3L 18.80 R3L 16.50

U3L 19.60 U3L 19.20

Hair sheep Conference in Germany

The trip to the Hairsheep Conference of Europe went ahead as planned on September 17^th and was very interesting and enjoyable. Professor Minhorst was a most attentive and informative host.

The day before the Conference he took us on a visit to the Agricultural College Farm of the University of Osnabruck where we saw their flock of Nolana and looked at the experimental garden. In the afternoon he took us to the farm of Herr Melchior, a very good stockbreeder who also breeds horses. He has a good flock of Nolana sheep. We saw 20. They are derived from Suffolks and some other German breeds. They also have the hardier type Nolana that has more of the Camaroon blood. Owing to some abstruse tax law (perhaps because he is retired?) he is only allowed to keep 20 at that farm although he could sell 500. He has two Border Collies, small but good, one trained in English and the other in German. The flocks in Germany are smaller than in the UK.

About 50 people attended the Conference on the 17^th. They came from Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and Holland as well as Germany and the U.K some had travelled enormous distances: those from Berlin took 11 hours and one went back that night. In the morning we looked at a demonstration of four pens of Nolanas of various types and were given a good lunch of Goulash. After that came the presentations.

Professor Minhorst said the Hairsheep breeding is making excellent progress in Germany: the demand for good young breeding stock cannot be satisfied. A couple of breeders have imported ‘Easy Care’ sheep from the UK that are being bred to heavy Nolana rams. Nolana breeders in Austria, Switzerland and Hungary are becoming more organised and in Holland they breed a meat type and a hill type.

The first speaker was Iolo Owen who had been invited for a second time, as he is the first systematic hairsheep breeder in Europe. He illustrated the geography of North Wales and Anglesey and outlined the thinking behind his development of the ‘Easy Care’ breed (from Wiltshire Horn and Welsh Mountain) since 1965, the successful early years culminating in the catastrophic loss of his flock of 2000 sheep in the Foot & Mouth epidemic of 2001 which set his programme back 7 years. This led him to found the ‘Easy Care’ society to disseminate the breed more widely in case of some future cataclysm as he is so sure that naturally shedding single purpose meat sheep hold the future of the sheep industry. Easy lambing, natural shedding and minimal shepherding are the aim. Sheep farming can be, and is, profitable. His flock is now up to 3000. The number of ‘East Care’ breeders in the UK is increasing exponentially and some have very large flocks. Not all are society members but there are more than 200 members in many countries.

Having to stop after every few sentences for Prof.Monhorst to translate was hard work for both of them but this didn’t show – they made the perfect double act opening the meeting in a humorous and friendly spirit.

Next came Tim White. He has 700 hair sheep in Wiltshire: Barbados Black Belly, Wiltshire Horn and Explana composite. He works in an advisory business, uses SIG recording. He made the point that farmers are bad businessmen who do not know the true cost of wool, they do not know about hair sheep and are slow-to-change traditionalists, so good financial and physical evidence is needed to convince them to change. He said they all lose money and are dependent on EU subsidies but it is important that protein food production should be quickly and efficiently increased. He listed the drawbacks and expenses of wool and commented on the shortage of trained labour but advocated weighing and measuring at birth, 8 weeks and 20 weeks measuring fat and muscle depth. Other important characteristics to record are shedding, parasite resistance, ease of lambing and lamb vitality, foot rot, mastitis.

Next: Franck Glorie – Da Ruischaf-Project in den Neiderland

His conclusion: “The future – and European Nolana with its own regional identity?”

Third: Professor Andras Kovacs – Anfang der Haarschaf zucht in Ungarn

(Origin of hair sheep breeding in Hungary)

Lastly: Dr Regina Walfert and Birgit Gergel – Landwirtscaft und geologier Friestaat Sachsen. (Agriculture and geology)

This paper was of great interest to everyone, as these findings had not been previously published. Professor Minhorst hopes to send transcripts of the papers later.

From all the papers and informal discussion with other delegates it was obvious that there is a universal swell towards wool shedding sheep that is driven by the obvious advantage of less work shepherding and by the less obvious but equally important fact that the absence of wool means more milk and faster lamb growth. Most breeds derive from various crosses with the Wiltshire Horn – polled Wilts in New Zealand, Wiltipoll in Australia, Katardin in the United States, Nolana in Germany and ‘Easy Care’ in the UK. We are at the moment the world leaders and it is important to stay ahead.

New Website

You may have noticed that we have a new website. If you wish to advertise stock for sale or to add your contact details on the list of breeders please visit www.easycaresheep.com click on register and complete the form.