We have always raised Rambouillet sheep, but when the wool incentive was phased out in the 1990's, it became clear that producing wool would not be profitable for our operation.  Australia and New Zealand produce high quality in a large enough quantity to supply the whole world.  Our production goals changed, and we began to focus on producing a lean, high cutability lamb carcass.  In 2000, Clinton Hodges let us use two of his Dorper x St. Croix rams. We crossed them with with our Rambouillet ewes to produce "1/2 Bloods".  Initially we ended up with about 40 lambs which we liked so much that we went back and bought 6 ram lambs.  We wanted to use these bucks to breed up our Rambouillet to produce a 5/8 Dorper/St. Croix, 3/8 Rambouillet ewe herd.  These ewes would be low maintenance, parasite resistant, not need shearing and could then be crossed back to a Suffolk for a terminal sire. When we had our first back-cross(3/4 X 1/2) to produce 5/8's we observed a rainbow effect. The lambs looked anywhere from Dorp-Croix with no wool to looking like a full blood Rambouillet. We have then set our our goals for a ewe herd of 7/8 or 15/16.  The 1/2 bloods also make good ewes however they do not shed their wool completely and do required shearing every few years.  Currently we have about a 1000 1/2 bloods which we are breeding up to 7/8's.  We can maintain around 2500 head of ewes which we hope one day will all be hair sheep.

These our some of our first 7/8's cross Ewe lambs.

Breeding Characteristics

On our operation, Survivability is a key characteristic that we breed for.  We usually feed cottonseed, and sometimes a little corn in the wintertime, but other than that they are pretty much on their own.  We usually run them in about 100-200 head per pasture.  One of problems that the hair sheep face in the industry is that hair lambs don't reach the slaughter weight desired by most large capacity slaughter facilities.  We have been breeding our sheep for Size and bone.  Although we want to keep our ewes thrifty, we are breeding away from small, fine boned, low muscled sheep.  Since all of our ewe herd originated from Rambouillet, breeding the Wool off of our sheep has always been a main concern.  It doesn't bother us to have some wool down the top of their back however it needs to be shed in the summer time.  The main product of our ranch is lamb, and the more lamb we can produce the more product we have to sell.  With hair sheep,  we have greatly increased the Productivity of our sheep herd.  Hair sheep can breed back unbelievably quick after lambing and we cull anything that does not maintain our standard.  We have always had quality sheep and hair sheep is no difference.  Keeping smooth, long bodied sheep, with good overall Conformation is always one of our main concerns.

Lambs

Young lambs                                                                                             Freshly weaned lambs

Some of our hair lambs and crossbred lambs are being fed as part of a feeding research trial in a feedyard in San Angelo, Texas.  Once the trial is completed, the data will be available for viewing.  The lambs weigh approximately 120 pounds in these photos.

Links

More Pictures

American Hair Sheep Assc.

General Information

Contact Information

Duwain & Sue Vinson

Midkiff, TX

[email protected]

[email protected]