Summer 2015 continued

In spite of show successes there was much trepidation in the marketplace as butcher`s lambs had been a much poorer price than the previous year. So with a mixture of hope and misgivings we set off to our first major commercial ram sale of the season - the NSA Borders & Wales Ram Sale at Builth Wells - along with daughter Deborah and a consignment of shearling rams from both our flocks. Much to everyone`s surprise there was strong demand for all breeds particularly Charollais with good numbers of buyers present.

In the pen classes Foulrice won 1st prize for large pen of shearling rams, and Galtres won second.


Our pen leader 14DG04519 won the open sh. ram class & also the John Davies cup for the show champion.This son of Foulrice Lightening subsequently sold for 1080gns to Innovis Breeding Ltd. 

The second ram in 14DG04651 (twin brother to our first prize Yorkshire Show winning shearling) won the performance recorded class selling for 1120gns. But our sale topper was our third ram in 14DG04842 (a March born son of Rhaeadr Nock) selling at 1300gns to D & A Fenwick Ltd of Gainsborough Lincolnshire.

There was a distinct variation in ram sales throughout the season, but all the shearling rams found new homes with demand for Charollais remaining strong to the end of the season for ram lambs.

The summer though not that hot provided an abundant supply of grass and our silage was much better quality than the previous year with dry matter of 31.5%, D value of 75.8 & ME of 12.1, better than the second cut haylage this year but even that is feeding nicely.

The grass supply meant that we had pastures at the right stage for flushing the ewes well both for July A.I. and October natural tupping.

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Summer 2015

Foulrice Charollais winning the Ripley group of three trophy at the G.Y.S. when Nock teamed up with two shearling ewes both daughters of Foulrice Lightening 14DG04500 & 14DG04549, all in all a show to be remembered

Rhaeadr Nock 13XXK00879 - 2015 Great Yorkshire Show Interbreed Champion.

Having been awarded the Charollais championship on the Tuesday, on the following day Nock progressed to win the Grafton Terminal Sire trophy and followed it up by being awarded Supreme Sheep Champion of the show. This success he repeated at both Driffield and Ryedale shows, finishing his season in style by winning the Interbreed trophy at Kilnsey Show for the second year running.

Spring 2015

Having brought you up to date with 2014 we now move on to spring of 2015. The bulk of the silage made last summer fed as expected with feed value deficiencies having to be compensated by increased levels of concentrate feeding for the ewes to milk well. Even then it is not fully possible to compensate for forage inadequacies with increased concentrates. We saved the better quality second cut silage to feed to the ewe lambs which were lambing to avoid prolapse problems.

We have in fact fed home mixed rations for thirty years now as you have much more quality control. With the pedigree flock numbers stable for a number of years at 500 there is no room for extravagant feed as our flock is run very much on a commercial basis, for even though we sell a number of rams each year for pedigree use, the bulk of our rams produced go onto commercial farms.

The Foulrice flock has been performance recorded since its formation 34 years ago and has seen steady progress till in 2015 our average index has passed the 300 mark.
 Our aim has always been threefold :-
 1/ To have a flock of consistent type which maintains the easy lambing attributes of the Charollais.
 2/ To produce rams with good skins, good shape & hardy type - pleasing to our customers.
 3/ To see continual improvement in growth & carcase traits through recording.

Early in the year the Signet RamCompare Project was announced. It is a two year pilot project designed to trial strategies for capturing commercial data on slaughter lambs in the UK sheep industry. It will be similar to central progeny tests that are taking place in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
So when the invitation was given for offers of high index Charollais shearling rams for the project we put some forward and had two accepted - both in the top 1% of the breed, and both March born on a grass based system. One sired by Lowerye Neils Favourite, and the other by Dalby Mount Aloe.

One of our best lambs in our December born batch was a Lowerye Neils Favourite son - Foulrice Pathfinder 15DG05165 who having an actual muscle depth of 37.9mm came in with a muscle EBV of 6 (the highest of the year) as part of an overall index of 414. Needless to say he was quickly sold to a private purchaser for a reasonable sum.

Great Yorkshire Show 2015 - First prize shearling ram on left shown by Stephen. Foulrice Osprey 14DG04650 March born twin sired by Dalby Mount Aloe. 

Celebrations to conclude 2014

Interbreed trophy presentation Kilnsey Show August 2014 with onlooking crowds on a good sunny day

Before the conclusion of sales for the year, having attended Skipton Multibreed Ram Sale on Friday 3rd October a.m. and arriving home after lunch we left home and headed off to Exeter. Our youngest son Andrew was married to Katherine in the splendid setting of Exeter Cathedral on the following afternoon of Saturday 4th October

More from Summer 2014

A day to be remembered - Not only did our shearling ewe Naomi take the championship as mentioned yesterday, but our junior stock ram Rhaeadr Nock XXK 00879 (bought the previous year at Worcs. Premier sale for 4400gns from Myrfa Evans ) took the male championship & reserve overall to crown an exceptional day.

Pictured with me is eldest son Stephen & both our wives in the background.

Moving forward to our last show of the season at Kilnsey up above Skipton, at the end of August, what should happen but Naomi had scald & so was left at home.

This is one of the best one day shows in the north of England with fourteen different sheep breeds exhibited including some of the best North of England Mules seen.The show draws large crowds and competition is intense and it all takes place in the shadow of Kilnsey Cragg, a beautiful setting for any show. Crag races and harness racing are also a feature of this popular show. 



So here we are six weeks after the Great Yorkshire Show & Rhaeadr Nock takes the Interbreed Sheep Championship at Kilnsey (Here pictured with the Cragg in the background) where more often than not it is won by one of the hill breeds What an honour !

Spring / Summer 2014

Before we launch into the happenings of 2015 lets just have a quick recap of the events of 2014.
Spring lamb trade was good for those that weren`t needed as flock replacements or to sell as ram lambs; whereas cull ewes took a step back. Nevertheless going back to the maxim that we adopted when first breeding Charollais  -  If you produce a quality product it will always have a market  - we are always able to sell at the better end of the market.
Forage was again an issue and after missing our early slot of weather for silage making by two weeks due to the rain we finished up filling the clamp plus a large number of big bales, all very dry and smelling good, sadly lacking in feed value. This was helped to some extent by the fact that we made a smaller number of second cut haylage bales of first rate quality later in the season.

13ZVY 00661 Lowerye Neils Favourite

     Photo of Favourite taken at Ryedale Show 2014 exhibiting the shape that we bought him for.           His first lambs were on the ground in March 2015 - but more of him in our 2015 report.

Foulrice Naomi 13DG 03523

Having resisted an offer to sell Naomi (pictured above) in early spring of 2014 she went on to be Champion Charollais at the Great Yorkshire Show and Res. Champion Terminal Sire Breed. She then followed it up with Champion Charollais & Interbreed Champion at both Driffield & Ryedale Shows.Incidentally Naomi is a daughter of one of our other top rated stock tups Dalby Mount Aloe PE01524 & her dam a previous female champion at the Great Yorkshire Show.



Overdue Update

For those of you who have waited patiently for this site to come out of hibernation here we are 20th february 2014 & finally made it. Since my last post obviously lots has happened some good & some not so good. Our shearling ewe 11DG01238 was res.Ch. female at the Great Yorkshire Show 2012 & went on to win three further breed champions at Driffield,Ryedale & Kilnsey. We also won the Charollais Ripley trophy for group of three at the G.Y.S.
Added to this we won the Yorkshire & Cleveland area flock competition for 2012 & went on to win the North of England Regional flock competition, with our home bred stock ram Foulrice Lightening 11DG01588 (sired by Castellau Krypton as is our show gimmer) being Champion stock ram.
Our notable purchase of the year was Dalby Mount Aloe 12PE01524 at 2000gns from Charles & Helen Sercombe at Worcs Premier sale - a very correct well fleshed ram with figures to match,& contrary to some previous experience his index has risen with use, & now stands at 447, putting him as the seventh top recorded stock sire.The reason for noting this is that he is producing the progeny to match - see below.
For us the summer of 2012 was one of the wettest in recent years which washed everything out & resulted in some of the poorest silage made for years - copious quantity but abysmal quality (still had 50 bales left for this winter 2013/2014 which our cattle are very reluctantly eating). The year finished off with a good dose of SBV which took 25% of our lamb crop after a moderate scan as well.
However as they say every cloud has a silver lining with some of the evidence pictured below.

Foulrice Nuria 13DG03368

Nuria one of the best tup lambs that we have bred for some years caught the eye of Eddie Buckley & others at Worcs. Premier sale 2013 subsequently selling at 5200gns making him top priced ram lamb at the sale. In total three Dalby Mount Aloe sons averaged 3000gns - the other two selling to Arwel Owen for the Banwy flock & to Jamie Wilde for the Redhill flock. Also a strong Foulrice Lightening son sold to Messrs Meyrick for the Bould flock in the Cotswolds. 



 Rhaeadr Nock 13XXK00879



Rhaeadr Nock was the pick of Myrfa Evans pen at Worcs. Premier 2013 & this run of ram lambs came into the ring before our run so we finished up investing 4000gns in Nock before ours came into the ring, which also turned out to be the second top price of the sale. He has produced some good lambs so look out for them this season. His fleece has been removed & he continues to impress!
We also took a fancy to Neil Oughton`s ram lamb Lowerye Neil`s Favourite 13ZVY00661 for his tremendous fleshing,& though our lambs from him will be March born we feel that he will make a positive contribution to the Foulrice flock as with his fleece removed he is not dissimilar to Ash Charollais Filibuster. Look out for his progeny as well!
Our 2013 show season was reasonably successful with our now 2shear ewe 11DG01238 taking Champion & Interbreed Champion at Driffield show for the second year running & repeating this success at Ryedale show. At Kilnsey show she had to make do with res. ch. as Champion went to her half brother Foulrice Lightening 11DG01588 who went on to win res.interbreed champion.
Now we need to get busy with the camera & produce some more pictures to bring you all up to date. It`s mid February & everything is, in spite of being wet, very green I guess that there`s time for some hard weather yet !!