French
Southdowns
Winners at Paris Show, 2004
Thomas 1st and 3rd
Bordier 2nd with their French Southdowns
Who is the Southdown Buyer?
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| Allez....French flockmaster Jean-Pierre
Mattivet gathers his Southdown shearling rams for inspection by a prospective
buyer. This summer has been the driest for more than 30 years at Mr. Mattivet's
Montel de Gelat Auvergne farm, with just 3mm of rain since May 30, he
says. |
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| Farmers' Weekly 25 July 2003 | Courtesy of Farmers' Weekly |
French Southdowns
There appear to be only 600 pedigree registered Southdown females in France, in the hands of only six members of the French Society.I visited three flocks on Tuesday and Wednesday, the 13th and 14th August, 2002, with Annick Audiot of UNRA, Toulouse. UNRA is the department of the French Ministry of Agriculture responsible for the conservation of rare breeds, in fact all old genetic material - flora or fauna - and Annick is the head of department who covers the southern half of France.
The three flocks we visited were those of Mr. Mattivet, who had 100 ewes, Mr. Boury, who had a slightly larger flock, and the Thomas flock, which numbered 180 ewes. The Thomas' flock is now in the name of Isabelle Thomas, the daughter-in-law of Colette Thomas who Sheila Colman imported from, but all the signs were that her husband and brother-in-law still took considerable interest in the sheep.
The first flock left me with the impression that they were leggy; the second less so, and the last, the Thomas flock, was normal. My overall impression was that the French sheep were larger and longer than ours, but with substantially better back ends. They all had white faces, which is a requisite for the French breed.
Lambs are all weighed at 21 and 42 days to give an indication of the ewe's milk production and the rams are all inspected, graded, and awarded the grading certificates, before registration.
They all had a bunch of rams for sale (25 in the case of the Thomas') at their annual Ram Sales (roughly equivalent to our NSA Ram Sales) at Bellac on 5th September.
All the flocks are in the Poitiers, Limoges, Bellac area, which has weather very like our own. They winter out and get bulk feed but very little concentrates. They have a consistent continental climate, so their haymaking weather and therefore their hay is better than mine. The all lambed in March, in old barns, coming in for two weeks prior to lambing and going out again immediately after.
Lambing percentages appeared to be @ 180 dropped and 140/150 reared.
Worms were the same problem for them as for us, so they dosed the ewes post parturition and lambs every four weeks from about 1st May.
Foot Rot did not seem to be a problem, but the Thomas' admitted to vaccinating everything with Footvax.
The French scrapie test is exactly the same as our own, with the same classification groupings and the Southdowns would seem to be coming up with the same pattern of results. It is too early to tell what impact it will have on sales.
In principal they all buy in their rams from each other, but very rarely buy in females. Rather like us, they make an exception of dispersal sales. They each had one or two very nice rams in the groups going to the sales, but the older stock rams that they were keeping were quite outstanding by my standards. Mattivet and Boury each had a couple I would love to have brought home, but the Thomas' had eight!
Their market is for
- Quality butchers' lambs in the local market, where they expect to get top prices, currently £50/55, or £60 privately, to independent butchers. The top price in the local market last Christmas was £85.
- Crossing rams to local commercial producer groups who like them to uphold the quality for their contracts, but can't sell them as "Southdowns" because the French housewife thinks French is best.
They talked of prices for pedigree rams in a range from £300 to £1,000. Annick Audiot said: "Rubbish!"
RICHARD COOPER
| To see pictures in larger size, click on the picture | |||
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This
document maintained by rutinum@aol.com.
Material Copyright © 2002 The Southdown Sheep Society