When we first purchased Blue Texel sheep, our goal was to own a flock of forty ewes. Now we have achieved this, we have no intention of increasing the flock any further but we are now working towards improving the quality of the flock year after year by being more selective when purchasing ewes and rams and also when selecting ewe lambs for the flock. We have a very specific idea of what we like within the breed; this is our own personal taste and obviously not everyone will have the same opinions, but that is what makes breeding sheep so interesting and challenging!
What we are trying to achieve is to breed a sheep that has all the correct characteristics of a Blue Texel as well as being a powerful, lengthy sheep with a strong frame and a good, muscular back end. We think this is essential for this unique breed to progress and believe that this type of sheep will also appeal to the commercial breeder as they hopefully will be our largest buyers in future years. Over the past few years, we have increased the size of the flock quicker by performing embryo transplants on a few chosen ewes. We decided to do this in order to produce more of the type of sheep we like which would hopefully improve the quality of the flock. We carefully select the best ewes and rams in order to try and produce the perfect lamb! It has proven a successful experiment as we have produced winners at the Royal Welsh Show over the last three years:-
One of the best ewes in our flock is one of the very first ewes we purchased from the Millside flock back in 2007. She consistently produces good lambs and she won the female champion at the Royal Welsh Show in 2010. If only every lamb born turned out to 
look like this...
As there is still only a relatively small number of flocks in the UK, one of the biggest challenges facing Blue Texel breeders at the moment is to find a bloodline within the breed that has no relation to their own flock. For this reason, we decided to travel to the Netherlands in 2011 in search of new bloodlines.
We had a thoroughly enjoyable trip; the Netherlands is a beautiful place. We travelled the length and breadth of the country and were fortunate enough to visit several flocks along the way. We made a lot of new friends on our journey and received a warm welcome from everyone we visited.
The trip was a great success with quite a few animals being imported as a result. Hopefully some of the progeny will be seen at shows and sales very soon.....