V.O.F. Veeger Lindehoeve
Welcome to the homepage of V.O.F. Veeger Lindehoeve
| V.O.F. Veeger Lindehoeve |  |
| Westerweg 32 | |
| 1797 RG DEN HOORN TEXEL | |
| Telefoon: +31 222 312978 | |
| E-mail: cgveeger@worldonline.nl | |
The farm
Our farm, called Lindehoeve, is a real Texel sheep farm. For over a hundred
years, Texel sheep have been bred here, now by the fourth generation of
Veegers on this farm. At present, the farm is run by Carlo, 37 years old,
Carien, 33 years old, and their two sons Coen and Lex of 11 and 9.
The 57 acres of land are used mainly as pasture for the sheep, and each
year a few acres are rented out for the cultivation of potatoes. We are
registered in the herdbook under breeders number 4204. We keep approximately
170 breeding ewes, as well as about 75 ewe lambs and usually a dozen rams.
We intend to increase our number of breeding ewes to about 200. Besides
the sheep farm we run a camp site, with room for eight tents, which is
especially popular in the spring and the summer, here on our beautiful
island.
The ewes
We only keep pedigree Texels on our farm. They meet all the highest health
requirements; they have been free of Maedi-Visna for almost 20 years now,
the flock is monitored for scrapie and the stud rams have been checked
for the scrapie-genotype for the past 4 years. Here the minimum requirement
is ARQ-ARR, while our aim is ARR-ARR. Consequently, the export of breeding
material has not caused any problems and takes place regularly, in recent
years for example, we have exported material to Portugal, the Czech Republic,
Belgium, Ireland, the Azores and Great Britain.
For the past twenty years, we have bred extensively with rams which come,
directly or indirectly, from the farm of C. Kikkert (4030). Examples of
this are 4030-0056, 0671, 1089, 1250, 1604, 2239 and recently 2708.
Our aim was to improve the exterior, especially the muscularity. In this
we succeeded, for a sizeable flock of amply developed, often well-muscled
sheep has been bred. The fertility has been 1.8 lambs per older ewe in
recent years. In the last few years, 3 ewes of our farm were registered
with 90 points, an A, while the sheep average over 86 points for general
appearance.
The lambs are weighed in a weighing programme, in order to give us more
insight into the growth rate. So a growth index is available for all animals.
Our farm regularly participates in regional shows, such as Purmerend,
Opmeer, Alkmaar and of course the show on Texel on the first Monday of
September. Our results are impressive: champion one-year-old ram in '98,
best group of three in '99, and reserve champion one-year-old ewes in
2000. Furthermore our ram lambs regularly succeed in getting into the
top ten of a show.
The rams
| In recent years a few rams have been used often. For example, ram 4030-2239, also known as 'the coalman', with 91 points for muscle, and his son 4204-1870, which we bred ourselves. He was Youth Champion of Texel in '98 as well as National Reserve Champion in '99 in Utrecht, and he has been awarded 89 points for muscle and 89 for general appearance. This ram is also ARR-ARR for scrapie. |  Ram 4202-1870 Jeugdkampioen Texel in 1998 |
This autumn we used ram 4030-2708, bred by C. Kikkert, for the second time. It has 88 points and 91 for muscle. Again, over thirty ewes have been tupped by this ram. He produces well-muscled progeny, which he proved once again this year.
His son 4204-2464
has been used this autumn as well, and often too, because we have a great
deal of faith in him. It is not surprising that he has been registered
with 88 points for general appearance, 88 for head and 88 for muscle.
In addition, this young ram is ARR/ARR. He was produced by ewe 4204-1870
with 86 points, and he was born without any help. At our farm, he has
tupped about 35 sheep. He has also produced progeny at a number of other
farms, G. Bakker's and H. Holsbrink's among them.
We have also used 4204-2300 again, a self-bred son of 4030-2546 from one of our best ewes, especially where it comes to characteristics. This 1.5 year old ram has been registered with 86 points for general appearance and 91 for muscle. He is ARR-ARR for scrapie. In the last year he has proven he produces well-muscled lambs.
4204-2345,
which we bred ourselves, has also been given several chances. As a 1.5
year old ram, he was registered with 87 points for general appearance
and 88 for muscle. Moreover, he is ARR/ARR. This late-developing son of
1938-583 (breeder H. Braam) is large and extra long. He has tupped about
25 ewes at our farm, after which he was put to work at G. Bakker's farm.
5609-630 (breeder J. Ros), used sparingly last year, has again tupped
30 ewes or so. This ram, registered with 87 points for general appearance
and 89 for muscle, ARR/ARR, produces well-muscled lambs, as his son 4204-2484,
who was also used, proves. This young ram has tupped two dozen ewes, was
awarded 86 points for general appearance and 87 for muscle and is ARR/ARR.
Besides, his mother was registered with 88 points and produced 6 lambs
in two seasons.
Finally...
We have put together this site as carefully as possible, but there is
always room for improvement. Should you have any comments, please send
an e-mail to cgveeger@worldonline.nl
If you want to see all these sheep for yourself, you are always welcome
at our farm, for a tour of the sheep.
Of course you can also camp here for a couple of days, but in that case,
do please call in advance to see if we have room.