Bentley Suffolks – Sires Used
Bentley Bodie
Bentley Brodie is possibly the best all-around ram we have bred here at Bentley. He is sired by the great Bentley Retallick and his dam is the twin sister to the Bentley Fly Half that has bred very consistently in many notable flocks across the world now.
Brodie combines excellent lambing traits, consistent with his NZ background but also a fantastic carcass and breed quality. With many lambs now performance recorded, his EBVs for lambing Ease, Growth and overall Terminal Index are within the Top 5% of the UK breed.
Brodie has been used extensively in the flock and we are delighted with his progeny to date.
Huish Titan
Titan is something a bit different that we tried within the flock. He has a background of Aberblack, which is the source of his extreme muscling in his loin and gigot. Since his progeny have been recorded his performance figures have increased and put him in the Top 1% for growth. We have nominated him for the AHDB Ram Compare project and are excited to await the results. We were so happy with his progeny that we retained 3 of his best sons for use in the Bentley flock in 2024. Shotgun, Ryder & Hundred. Titans progeny have also consistently come out very well on our Dag scoring project, which is a trait we are focused on improving.
Sandyknowe Trent
Trent has been one of the best rams we have ever bought into the flock. He has bred unbelievably consistently for us, with many rams being sold into other pedigree flocks. His performance figures have remained high since we bought him. His daughters are now breeding very well and continue his excellent structural traits, for feet, colours, lambing ease and ability to hold condition on a grass system. We will have to wait a long time to buy another ram to have such an influence on our flock.
Bentley Retallick
Retallick has been a huge influence on the Bentley flock since moving to a forage only system. Retallick was sold as a shearling to Rob Pratt, but when we saw him a year later we were so impressed with him, we had to try and use him at home (luckily Rob allowed us to do that). He is now going into his 6th year, he is always fit and never fed! He is always clean and never lame!
Retallick is 50% NZ Suffolk and also carries 1 copy of the Myomax muscling gene. His lambs are born easily and have plenty of vigour and have really performed well on a grass only system (no creep feed).
We have many daughters now in the flock and they are showing the same good characteristics as Retallick!
Bentley Black Fern
Black Fern was our top lamb in 2017. He was brother to a ram sold to Logiedurno and his dam is one the best NZ bred ewes in the flock. He combined great performance on our system, EBVs in the Top 1% of the breed including a high-fat EBV which we were looking for and excellent colours & type.
Sandyknowe Sole Trader
Sole trader was bought as the top priced ram from the 2014 Sandyknowe ram sale. He was born outside in May, but was one of the biggest rams at the sale. Sole Trader is arguably the longest ram used at Bentley for 20 years. His first crop of lambs have not disappointed, they were easily born, with a high survival rate at lambing. They have inherited his length and have grown and fleshed very easily on our grass only system.
Sole trader also boasts Top 1% performance figures for both Terminal and Maternal Traits.
Huish Mcaw
Mcaw is a new ram purchased privately from David Rossiter early this year. He is a grandson of the New Zealand ram Collie-hills 243:2009, that we used via AI at Bentley in 2013. We were keen to have more his genetics within the flock. When we saw Mcaw’s style and tremendous conformation, on a forage only diet, we thought he ticked all the boxes. His dam was the famous Sandyknowe Ettrict 07-1 and he has good performance figures in all areas. We look forward to his first batch of lambs in 2016.
