After a busy week we were delighted with the trade we received at recent key sales.

English National Sale at Worcester saw shearling rams to 4,200gn for a Glorious Gigot son and a top of 1,100gn for an Intrepid ram lamb.

The Solway and Tyne Club sale at Carlisle saw shearling rams to 3,800gn for Kimbolton Invictus a High Performer son who was successfully used as a lamb in the flock.

Then the Shropshire and Borders Texel Club sale at Shrewsbury saw a joint top price of 600gn for a brace of Kimbolton ram lambs, plus we also won reserve female champion with a shearling ewe!

All sheep sold are off to excellent homes and we wish the purchasers the very best of luck with them.

We would also like to thank all underbidders, mart staff and everyone who made some lovely comments about the consignments on offer, it means the world.

Its official, Kimbolton is in a drought area.

After weeks and weeks with no rain, we are now officially in a drought area.

The grass has finally burned off and the bales are out again in feeders. What we thought was a glut of forage is now being fed at an ever increasing rate, however the sheep are holding up well at the moment.

This picture shows one field cut for grass on 19th June after it had muck spread on it, it has had no rain since!

Fingers crossed some arrives soon!

The flock was honoured to be invited to supply four shearling ewes for the Texel Sheep Society at the NSA Sheep event at Malvern.

Along with rams from Millend and Whitehart, the Kimbolton ewes looked the part, with many positive comments received from those we talked to.

Unusually, we have a selection of shearling ewes for sale this year, so head over top the for sale page and download the latest list, but be quick as they wont hang around and Paul might change his mind and keep them!

All adults have now had their haircuts and are looking very trim.

Shearing today is a welfare matter as over centuries man has selectively bred wool onto sheep as it was a highly prized natural material. So much so, that in years gone by the farms annual rent would have been paid for by the wool produced with the meat being an additional profit.

Today, things have vastly changed and sadly people seem to want to wear clothes made of plastic and cotton and have carpets made from the same plastic that is all refined from oil. As a result wool has lost its value and it costs more to shear a sheep than you get back when you sell the wool.

However wool remains a fantastic natural product that is a great carbon store and slowly but slowly it is getting a little bit more interest again but its nowhere near what it used to be.

So an alternative approach is to try to selectively breed the wool off the sheep again. This would restore them to how they were before they were domesticated. This would remove the risk of the animal getting flystrike which is caused by maggots laying eggs in dirty wool, but it seems a shame as wool is so sustainable and useful for everything from insultation to fertiliser.

You can rest assured that Paul is experimenting with reducing wool cover. The two photographs below are from two aged rams and you can see the difference in wool cover for yourself!

What a difference a year makes, last year at this time we had to cut twice the area to get half the volume of forage. This year the earlier rain was very welcome and we have now managed to make sufficient forage to last us the winter with a small surplus we can perhaps sell later in the autumn.

However, we don’t know what the next few months will bring so nothing will be leaving the farm just yet as experience has taught us to be prepared for the next drought!

Today we genotyped our entire 2026 lamb crop but why and what is involved?

DNA is collected using a non invasive nasal swab and this is then preserved in a tube which is sent off for analysis.

Information gained from this DNA then provides data into the National Texel Genomic Evaluation that is carried out by the Texel Society. Using DNA information along with other measurements (called phenotypes) the evaluation can then predict with a high level of accuracy what the genetic merit of each lamb is, allowing them to be ranked in order of performance.

This data is valuable because it allows both Paul and buyers to understand those animals that will deliver the best return before they have lambs. This leads to more efficiency and reduces waste and performance surprises.

In addition, health single marker traits are now routinely reported which helps to identify animals that are genetically more resistant to things such as Scrapie, Microphthalmia and Maedi Visna. This means the information can be used to breed healthier sheep.

The Kimbolton flock has worked closely with research projects for two decades and is one of the original members of the Texel Societies Resource Flock initiative. This approach ensures that we stay at the forefront of industry Research and Development (R&D) and can deliver real value in the animals offered for sale.

Visit our” For Sale” page to find a list of our stock for sale.

As always, we advise contacting Paul to arrange a visit to view the sheep with no obligation to purchase. This offers an invaluable way to see the commercial system they are produced in and provides an opportunity to discuss your breeding goals to ensure you consider the right sheep for your needs.

It is becoming clearer that there is a huge difference in the genetics of “high maintenance/high cost” show type Texel’s and Texel’s that will drive profit to your bottom line if you produce fat lambs.

Our focus has, and always will be, on ensuring our customers can focus on their bottom line by using genetics that provide natural growth, carcass and other commercially important traits.

Why fight nature when you can work with it to produce great results? We have done the hard work in selecting the right genetics, which reduces risk in your buying decisions.

If you want to earn more profit per lamb, contact us today.

Lambing 2024 will be remembered for appalling weather, flooding and schmallenberg but out of all of the dark and sadness new life appeared and thrived which helped to lighten the mood.

The ewes remained outside in the poor conditions until four weeks before lambing. When housed they really appreciated getting out of the weather and being on some dry bedding. At times it felt like they were in an Ark!

Overall ewes lambed easily and milked well, so far there has been very little mastitis which considering the weather is pleasing. Perhaps the benefits from culling hard and keeping a younger flock are beginning to come through.

It is a massive help when you are busy that you don’t have to spend time with “problem ewes”. We found historically that its usually when you are messing about with one that you suddenly remember it had an issue the previous year. To prevent this, we now record issues and mark the sheep to cull at the time and don’t change our minds at weaning time when they look great because they haven’t reared a lamb!

The February born lambs are all out with their mothers and have been battered by the continued rain. However despite everything we trust our genetics and you can start to see the cream floating to the top even with the odds stacked against them.

We hope for kinder weather and even perhaps some sun, it would help things greatly.

Please visit the for sale page to view the latest list of animals and semen for sale this year.

We have been delighted so far with the number of visitors that we have visit to select their choice from the depth of breeding available this year. Many visitors appreciate the opportunity to spend time looking at both the animals on offer and also understanding the system they are produced in.

This provides a far more revealing experience than visiting a market and seeing pens full of sheep that have been produced by artificial breeding methods (sometimes from female lines who have never lambed themselves) and then are fed the finest food and vegetables available!

The Kimbolton flock is grounded in commercial reality and not caught up in the hype of “high priced show types”. Our diverse customer base want sheep that can perform off forage and a commercial system without excessive inputs.

Feel free to get in touch to see what we could offer.