We farm around 300 acres in total, keeping around 1,000 commercial ewes and 200 followers. The ewes are mainly a mixture of Suffolk X and Mule X. We use a variety of rams including Charollais, Suffolk, Texel and Beltex. We breed mainly for the meat market, aiming to produce a combination of good weights and good carcasses. We lamb our commercial ewes in 2 groups of 500 from early March to mid April. It is necessary to split our ewes into 2 groups to enable us to do all our lambing inside. Lambs are sold from May through until December and the majority are sold direct from grass. Any lambs struggling by October time are given a helping hand and brought indoors for feeding. Each year 200 ewe lambs are selected to be kept on for breeding. These are allowed to grow into strong yearling ewes before being given a ram. None of our ewe lambs are bred from.
Blue Texel sheep had caught our eyes with their unusual, distinct appearance but it was after receiving 2 ewes as wedding gifts in 2007 that our pedigree flock of Blue Texel sheep 'Beili Blues' was formed. These had been purchased from the 'Dulas' flock, Llangammarch Wells. Our flock increased later that year following a visit to the 'Millside' flock, Ayrshire where we purchased a further 6 ewes and a ram. We soon realised that the Blue Texel sheep are easy lambers, producing quality lambs with good conformation and a carcass well suited for the meat market. We saw that there was a good future for the breed to the commercial buyer as well as the pedigree breeder. Their unique appearance also appeals greatly to the hobby farmer. The 'Beili Blues' flock has since increased to 40 ewes and 5 top quality Blue Texel rams. We lamb our Blue Texel ewes from mid Feb, hoping that the majority of lambs will be born by mid March. This gives the lambs enough time to grow and develop and gives us plenty of selection for the show season. In the last 3 years, we have introduced some Blue Texel rams to our commercial flock with great success. The vast majority of the lambs are white. One of the biggest advantages we’ve seen is that they lamb with great ease, meaning that we have more live lambs therefore more lambs to sell. The Blue Texel X lambs have proven a big success for us, producing consistently good weights and grades.
“Some of our Pedigree Blue Texel ewes”