Does the show ring have any place in commercial British sheep and beef farming? Should we be following the pig and poultry industry and working from individual performance records or can a good stock man tell everything about an animal just by looking at it for 10 minutes in the show/ sale ring. I for one have very little luck with working out how a rams daughters will milk just from looking at him.  

yes i think any stocksman should be able to pick out animal in the ring that would best suit his needs.

i am a keen showman and i will purchase a bull or ram by looking at its carcass as this is where your offspring will be better off

The way things are going, most commercial showmen have their stock performance tested anyway, so you get the best of both!

YES AND NO ,

recorded performance data with regard to sheep , i feel ,is as subject to interpretation ,as showing is , most performance figures by the individual sire reference schemes have a serious flaw in that most figures are more to do with the individual farmers feeding regime and his merchant ,(fatness can be adjusted for figures by feeding say more undegradable protien )  than actual performance off of unimproved pasture found on many sheep farms .We had our own recording scheme 20 years ago produced by one of the top army computer programers at the time and lambs reared with the aid of creep (sometimes fed only ad lib creep) are different animals than ones that perform off grass only .

i took this up with the MLC years ago but their reply was that there is not enough difference between animals on a pure grass diet ,  my reply was you just need to keep looking for the one that IS and use him, but there is no money in that for them trying to run a scheme .so they wernt interested .

The beef / pig schemes are relevent in that the  recorded animals offspring are reared commercially on the same, similar  diet as the adults data comes from .

The show ring also has its flaws in that `show type' sheep are very different to commercial animals they should aspire to , Big rangy , large boned rams that need masses of feed to get condition on them might look good on the day , but would be hopeless crossed with a suffolk mule ewe , you just end up with masses of 60kg store lambs you struggle to finish

I have always felt terminal sire ram lamb classes at the premier shows should be restricted to animals in a commercial weight range say upto 50kg , so at least we have half an idea  as to what lambs they will produce conformation wise , I have been privilided to judge at some of these shows and i,m affraid a lean  90kg ram lamb does no one any good .

also lets get the adult sheep sheared , say a week or so before every show so we can see the animal  and his / her fat and conformation not the immacuate trimming out .We could learn a lot from the usa 4H system

Showing can be a good advert , but it needs a damn good shake up , as at present and in the past it has done more harm than good .

I've been lurking here awhile now and I'm suprised that this is my first post. Basically, Americans have never met a purebred of any type that they could not happily destroy in the show ring. You'd have to see what we've done to Dorsets to believe it.

Jon

agreed , but they are looking for a diffrent set of qualitys , than us , still doesent detract that a lot of faults are hidden under the neatly trimmed coat .

look how easiy it is for cattle/ pig  men to see the conformation of the animal .

I am getting some beasts, but will not be showing them intending to win. That may be a bit strange - if you cant win you dont play. Initially I thought showing would be a good idea, but when I thought about why I was going to keep stock, I saw that there would be little point. I am looking for animals that are good mothers and whos meat tastes good and looks good on the plate, not who conform to some defined standard. Anyway, its probably all a rigged clique anyway.

dogjon:

You'd have to see what we've done to Dorsets to believe it.

Let's here a bit more from you then dogjon, don't let Kansas have the US all to himself. However, what do you mean "done to Dorsets?" Have you made them bigger, less fatty, longer legs, coarser wool, longer finishing time?

But back t the theme. Although I don't show myself (too many other things to do) I do think that Showing Stock has an important role here in the UK, particularly for the general public who would never see stock close up otherwise. Also the show circuit brings together a cameraderie amongst participants many of whom are able to keep just s few animals.

(Sorry must rush as the wife is chasing me!)

I remember when my uncle used to show his Pedigree Limousin.  It was hard work but great fun and allowed a chance to get together with like minded individuals.  It's also a great platform to meet your public, to talk to them and see what there perspective which will help you with your business decisions in the future. 

Peter Wells:

(Sorry must rush as the wife is chasing me!)

On a Sunday Peter,  You must have been a good dad to get those sorts of gifts on Fathers Day or has she got the wrong interpretation of Fathers Day!!!

 

There's a breed of sheep in france that very few UK farmers have ever heard of called lacaune,

Its illegal to show the animals as the farmers and government agreed years ago that mass collections of animals for fairs, shows e.tc was the fastest and most efficient way of spreading all diseases in sheep. 

The breed is divided into two camps A and B for arguments sake with each camp taking a slightly different approach to how the breed should be improved but with ultimately the same goal, partly this protects the genetic diversity of the breed and also encourages a healthy competetiveness between the two camps. 

Each camp then has a kind of league table of farmers who participate in the performance recording, the top performers each year are considered the 'premier league'  and only these flocks benefit from the very best genetics (or most recently proven rams) just like the premiership you can be relegated to the second and third division.  This means that the best genetics go to the best producers rather than the richest.

 There is no prize for the best ram nor are farmers allowed under the scheme to privately market their rams this means spin is kept to a minimum and farmers focus on what really counts, sustainable profitability.  Over a period of around 3/4 years the top genetics will have filtered through the system down to the farmers who don't officially record their performance.  Of course all this is made possible by the vast majority of flocks using AI. 

 The breed is widely recognised as one of the most genetically improved breeds in the world and there are currently over 120 geneticists working on the breed full time.  80% of the breed are genotyped ARR/ARR and the lambs have the highest DLWG of any in the world.

Yet we've never heard of it in the UK.   How proud of that rosette are you now?

 Food for thought I hope

The Lacaune is a Milk sheep and very good at it.

This is why very few people have heard of it in the UK. It has similar conformation to a Friesland and as such will never be a great meat breed. It is very prolific and the lambs are normally weaned from the ewes within a week of birth, most of the ram lambs are finished at light weights for the Greek and Italian market.

I would dispute the figures of the highest DLWG as it is from an all milk or cereal diet. Sheep production in temperate zones should all be about maximum DLWG from grass or forage.

Milk sheep are normally lambed three times in two years to achieve maximum production.

spot on frank , dlwg from forage is the most important consideration , and both above systems sadly lack on both counts , Females need prolificacy and milking ability and males need to be able to pass on conformation and easy finishing from grass at 32 - 44 kg .

Peter Wells:

Let's here a bit more from you then dogjon, don't let Kansas have the US all to himself. However, what do you mean "done to Dorsets?" Have you made them bigger, less fatty, longer legs, coarser wool, longer finishing time?

Hi Peter. They've basically made them into longer taller giraffe looking things. Too large of frame to finish on grass. General consensus is that they did this by crossing them with Columbias. As my long time lamb buyer said, "Dorsets didnt have great feet to begin with but bringing in the Columbia blood destroyed them completely". We got out of the purebred Dorsets about 15 years ago because we just couldnt find any suitable rams for our grass based operation but I think these fads run in cycles as I'm starting to see ads for "old fashioned" Dorsets in the sheep mags now and seeing ads for "short eared" Dorsets in the local ag weekly. As a side note, when Coopworths first came into this country, one of the things that attracted us to them was that you werent allowed to show them in conformation classes. When they finally started an American registry, guess what the first big falling out was over? I think we have two Coopworth registries now.

Jon

half the problem is the SIZE issue ,with regard to show sheep it did make me a little cross the other day when a breed champion at one show was discribed as a good commercial sheep , but not a very good show sheep , surely the show sheep should be the best commercial type avalible that you would be happy to use on purebred ewes .