15/10/2020
So this is the Big Boys club. These are the stock rams for this year.
6 rams of 6 different breeds from the left as follows: Lanark, Suffolk, Rough Fell, Swaledale, Scotch and Texel.
All bring different characteristics, whether that be hardiness and survival ability, mothering drive, milk volume, size, meatiness, taste, and ability to finish off grass without meal.
These guys will have a busy season each being mated to approximately 50 ewes so they get a bit of ration to condition them for the arduous task ahead ;-)
There are over 200 different breeds of sheep extant in the world today and these are six fairly common ones.
All the horned ones bar the Rough Fell belong to the sub-group Blackface Mountain sheep, just that in different parts of Britain they were developed for different traits.
There is only one breed of sheep specifically native to Ireland - the Galway which are white faced and hornless, very big sheep and whose wool was traditionally used for Aran Sweaters.