Breeding and bloodlines
Back in 2002 when I first thought about setting up a pedigree flock I went to the in-lamb ewe sales just to look and understand what I liked and disliked subjectively and then objectively with the Signet figures.
In 2003 I bought four in-lamb ewes from the Foulrice Flock of Charles & Valerie Marwood and one from Mark Johnson’s Pride Of Park flock.
In 2003 I bought 16 ewes from Rodney Sheard’s dispersal which were all bred at Foulrice with the majority by Westonvale Jubilee and 6 ewe lams from ZGG flock which were all by a Jubilee son, Foulrice Custer.
At the 2004 Rutland in lamb ewe sale I purchased two high-indexed in-lamb shearlings from Richard & Jane Easom’s Grimston Flock and one from the Crogham Flock of Jonathan & Carol Barber and one from Mary Tulloch’s Rutland flock. These last four purchases were to improve my flock’s connectedness.
However, the main purchase of 2004 was Lowerye Evangelist (See picture) from the Worcester Premier Sale to become our main Stock Ram. This impressive ram lamb by Westonvale Apostle has a Scheme Index of 393 in the top 5% of ram lambs with a muscle EBV of +4.53mm – almost double the average for the breed!
He really looks likes his figures and has some tremendous muscly, tight skinned lambs on the ground currently. (See pictures)
Our greatest achievement last year was winning 2nd Prize in the Flock Competition - Central Region North (Small Flock) for our ewes and 3rd Prize for our ewe lambs.
We even tried showing last year where we made to feel welcome and hopefully the guidance we received from our fellow competitors will helps us gain some publicity and prize tickets!
This year we will be offering a few pedigree ewe lambs for sale so watch this space for details!
