Welcome to the Eyre White Sheep site. Eyre White sheep have been developed since 1989 and are a work in progress.(As is this website…or maybe it is a blog!). While there is still a way to go, they are getting to the stage where other shedding sheep breeders may be interested. The main focus has been to produce a hardy, easy care sheep with minimal inputs. No shearing, crutching or tailing is required. My aim is to produce lambs which are fully shed by October to minimize grass seed damage and can slot into the local prime lamb market (18-20 kg carcass) without grain or any other intensive feeding. I have been selling lambs up to 26 kg carcase weight but I consider them overfat, although I have had no negative feedback, I think 20-22kg is about right. Eyre White sheep are good with fences- staying in the paddock better than most x-breds. The Wiltshire and Van Rooy breeds were added to the composite mix, specifically because of their tendency to not crawl.   Nothing is foolproof .... I do wean my lambs into a training paddock and I am sure they could soon learn to crawl in the right circumstances                   Heavy selection pressure for shedding over the years has resulted in most of my ewes now being fully shed (this took a lot longer than I was expecting!). No Eyre White sheep on the Keith property has ever been shorn in its life. I guarantee any Eyre White ram sold will be fully shed by the end of December and will shed every year…..but they will not be as big or heavily boned as animal fed up on a show ration.

Any ewe which does not rear a lamb until weaning is culled, including maidens….make an exception for those lambing at 12 mths old , think it is too young but have lambed a couple of lots at this age to balance out my numbers.

I am wary of extremes in any animal breeding process …there is no free lunch… the current trend in sheep and cattle to breed bigger, more muscular, faster growing animals, while it has obvious benefits to the producer, also has drawbacks such as difficult births and, when feed is short, poor finishing and low fertility. My take on increasing lean meat yield in lambs is that high growth rates and increased lean meat yield are associated with decreased tenderness and decreased consumer satisfaction and so we have to be very careful not to go too far in that direction. There is no point breeding a fast growing, high yielding animal which nobody wants to eat.

Because I am still in the process of “fixing” my composites, I have not used a terminal sire over them although I am sure there would be short term production benefits. My aim is to produce a self-replacing line of meat sheep and I know I lose the gains of hybrid vigour but I also lose the hassles and costs of buying in replacements.