As the nights draw in most people feel like curling up in front of the fire but our minds turn to selecting tupping groups!

This is surprisingly time consuming, as we study each ewe and decide what her good and not so good points are, then we try to match them with a ram that suits her best, ensuring that the progeny improve as much as possible.

In many ways, it’s a bit like what an online dating app does but for sheep!

This involves making around 150 decisions as this dictates the best genetic matches possible and this will be what dictates the type of lambs we will have to work with in 2025 and beyond.

Rams chosen for use this year include the following (click the name to find out more about each):

Kimbolton Gladiator

Kimbolton Glorious Gigots

Kimbolton High Performer

Kimbolton Eagle

Ettrick Grey Goose

Overburns High Tide

Eden Valley Hollywood

Once mated nature takes over and the sheep carry and lamb naturally but the mating selections made hopefully will ensure that future generations improve for the commercially important traits that we select for.

We have not been able to escape the eagle eye of the Editor of our Parish Magazine and this month’s magazine features Paul and his Champion Texel from Tenbury Show on the front cover.

Additionally inside the magazine is an editorial that talks about the flock and the latest concerns over Bluetongue (a midge borne disease that is spreading throughout the UK at the moment that has devastating consequences.)

Today saw a worthwhile trip to Carlisle to purchase new bloodlines for the flock.

Overburns High Tide is sired by Ettrick Grey Goose who sold for 42,000gn at Lanark in 2023 to Cowal and Thornbury flocks, with Ettrick retaining a share. So far he has sired 1st and 2nd prize winners at RHASS & RWAS in 2024.

He is a full brother to Highland Spring who was champion at the English National Sale in 2024 and sold to Cambwell, Mitchelhill and Strawfrank flocks for 6,000gn . His Ettrick GDAM also bred Ettrick Gruffalo who sold at Kelso 24 for 35,000gn.

An exceptionally bright, correct lamb and in Paul’s opinion was the nicest of the flush he had seen. He was purchased for his top, gigot, fat depth, length, prolificacy and character and hopefully, he will click with the higher muscled ewes in the flock.

Also joining the flock is Eden Valley Hollywood who is brother to Eden Valley Hit the Diff who sold for 8,000gn to Cambwell and Caterthun.

Hollywood is sired by Knockem Grandslam (who is by 28,000gn Haymount Foremost) and is from a 2017 born dam by 30,000gn Knock Yankee who was still lambing naturally in 2024!

He is another bright, correct lamb who was purchased for his top, gigot, length, and style. Hopefully, he too will click with the ewes he will be put with.

Both lambs are ARR/ARR and G/G and from families who have successfully sold rams to commercial lamb producers and pedigree flocks.

We eagerly await lambing 2025 to see how they perform with their first crop of lambs.

Despite having sold our consignment in advance of the sale, today was a great day for the Kimbolton flock at the Shropshire & Borders Texel Club sale at Welshpool as Kimbolton Frisky was tapped out as Reserve Champion by judge Andrew Reed in the pre sale showing.

Frisky is a powerful son of Kimbolton Eagle and was the top priced ram lamb sold at the Shropshire & Borders Texel Club sale at Shrewsbury in 2022. He was purchased by the Pryce family for their Caereinion flock and was successfully used as a ram lamb.

Speaking after the sale Paul said ” Its great to see Kimbolton breeding featuring in not only progressive commercial flocks, but also in discerning pedigree flocks too. Cefin has enjoyed success with Kimbolton genetics selling to 8,000gn, plus it was great to see the 24,000gn champion at the NSA Builth sale this year from Andrew Reed also had Kimbolton in the back pedigree too.”

As well as being busy with sales this year, of course the groundwork goes into planning the 2024 lamb crop.

Paul has been busy evaluating ram choices that will enhance commercial traits of interest that support the flocks breeding objectives and the following rams will be used.

Kimbolton Great Shape is a naturally born twin by Kimbolton Dynamite (who is by 40,000gn Garngour Alabama). Great Shape’s dam is by the 8,000gn Duhonw ram who was NSA champion in 2017. He has style and a serious carcass being the lamb who had the best killing out percentage of all Texel lambs CT scanned in 2023 (52.5%). He is pictured below the day before he won his class at Tenbury Show.

Kimbolton Glorious Gigots is another naturally born twin who is a block of a lamb. He is by Kimbolton Forever Ready who is a muscular son of Wallington Special Brew who has produced serious gigots in all his progeny (hence the name!). On the dam side is Kimbolton Yeoman who has bred well for a number of flocks. He too has been through the CT scanner and carries more carcass fat than the other choices so will be used to balance ewes who are leaner.

Kimbolton Gladiator is a very long naturally born twin by Kimbolton Commander who has produced some tremendous fast growing, shapely sheep for us. Gladiators dam is by 7,000gn Hilltop Cobra who has done a great job for us.

Also back by popular demand is Kimbolton Dynamite who has become Garngour Alabama’s highest index son (in the August evaluation run he was the sixth highest stock sire in the breed).

Also we are excited to introduce Highcraigs Feldspar who is a very interesting addition to the breeding programme. A Glenway Dynasty son out of a the most successful female line in the Highcraigs flock which goes back to some tremendous Drinkstone breeding. We are grateful to Duncan MacNiven for allowing us the opportunity to try him out and we look forward to seeing the results.

Sale season is well underway and demand has been humbling with both new and repeat buyers seeking out Kimbolton genetics to add to their flocks.

What is particularly pleasing is listening to stories from existing customers of lambs finishing faster with better shape and increased weights (particularly important for live sales this year). All this drives more efficient production by getting lambs off their farms faster which is a key driver for profit!

Shearling rams have all been sold now but we still have a limited selection of high index ram lambs for sale direct from the farm as well as some lovely breeding females who would make good additions to an existing flock or a nice starter flock.

As always please go to the “For Sale” page to download the latest list of animals for sale. Also listed are the semen choices that we can offer too if you are thinking of using AI.

If you are unsure about what to do, just give Paul a call and he will be happy to talk things through to make sure you get the right outcome for your breeding objectives.

The Kimbolton flock enjoyed success at a wet Tenbury Show on Saturday.

We took four sheep and the results were (drum roll please)

Ram – 1 year or above – 1st with Kimbolton Eagle

Ram Lamb – 1st with Kimbolton Great Shape

Ewe – 1 year or above – 2nd with PPK2201082

Ewe Lamb – 3rd with PPK2301163

Despite the weather it was a lovely day to catch up with people and we are delighted to say we have already done some business as a result of our attendance there.

We would like to congratulate all other exhibitors and also thank the organisers and stewards without whom the show would not be what it is.

Roll on next years (and some sun!)

Kimbolton Eagle

Kimbolton Great Shape

Once of the key benchmarking tools that are used extensively to manage our flock are regular measurements of weight and carcass quality.

Our regime of data collection starts with recording the birth weight within 24 hours (measuring straight after birth is too messy!), this is applied consistently each year to ensure year on year comparisons can be made.

Then following birth the lambs are weighed each time they are handled, so the next weights are done when they receive their Ovipast vaccination around four weeks of age. As this routine is repeated we begin to build up a picture of Daily Live Weight Gain which we can review in our farm software. Whilst this is crude as it doesn’t take into account birth/rear type (single/twin/triplet), it does provide an early indication of growth rates and allow actions to be taken on any poor performers. This allows decisions to be made about removing any lambs who mothers might be struggling to rear multiples, they can then be marked for culling.

Weigh data is then submitted to The Texel Society via its iTexel platform so that it can be evaluated in a statistical model that allows an “apples and apples” comparison between sheep and also between flocks and production systems.

Additional data is added following ultrasound scanning for muscle depth and backfat and then the “best” five ram lambs are CT scanned with this data also being included within the evaluations.

Once evaluated we then have reasonably accurate information to make our breeding decisions as we know about carcass composition and growth.

Obviously technology improves all the time and we are excited about the prospect of using genomics in the next couple of years to improve accuracy even further, particularly on ram lambs.

The pictures below show some of the ram lambs on their day out to the CT scanner.