We have found that the British Milksheep have several major advantages over the better-known commercial breeds, these being:
- High lamb yield
- High milk yield
- Vigorous lambs
- Ewes make excellent mothers
- Low intervention lambing
- Docile temperament
Over the last 25 years we have worked to improve the breeds acknowledged high standards in prolificacy and milk yield.
Introducing British Milksheep into the commercial flock using a British Milksheep ram as a crossing sire has passed these characteristics onto the crossbred daughter.
Milk production at 150 days is 1.3 liters in average, milk fat 5.97%, proteins 6.92, lactose 4.6, dry matter 17.99..
Aleksandar Milovanović
Crossing British Milksheep ewes with terminal sires such as Hampshire Downs, Suffolks and Charolais have yielded excellent results with some lambs being ready for market at three months of age.
British Milksheep tups on commercial flocks increases the prolificacy of the offspring, enabling you to breed excellent replacement stock.
Sheep from the Arden flock have been sold all over the UK to successfully increase prolificacy in established commercial flocks. Sheep are also exported across Europe, both inside and out of the European Union. Semen from our rams has also been exported abroad to countries such as Hungary.
This year we achieved an average of 2.2 lambs at 8 weeks per ewe, this includes 10% of the ewes being tegs.
From last import one owner had 7 lambs from one sheep (5 alive- no hormones), one with 4 lambs and last three with twins. On second farm we used synchronization and we do laparoscopic AI and we had 2.5 weaned lambs per lambing.
Aleksandar Milovanović
We are continually looking to improve our stock and have gone back to some of the original breeds to support some of the desired characteristics. We have a small group of ewes which we are crossing with an East Friesland ram to strengthen the prolificacy and milkiness of our flock. We have in the past crossed a different small group of ewes with a Poll Dorset ram with excellent maternal scores to improve robustness and conformation of the flock.
The flock is MV accredited.