Meet Teagasc BETTER Farm Sheep Programme Participant - Kevin Carey
The Carey family have been farming sheep on the picturesque Erris peninsula near Bellmullet for generations with Kevin, and his family, the latest generation to take over running the farm. Here Sheep Specialist Damien Costello gives an outline of the enterprise.
The Carey holding includes good quality lowland pasture, commonage hill grazing as well as rights to common grazing on nearby Inishkea islands. The farm runs a flock of March lambing lowland ewes alongside a flock of mainly Mayo Connemara blackface hill ewes.
Lowland Flock
Lambing
The first of the lowland ewes lambed on 16th March and lambing progressed well from then. The lambing start date had been early March but has been pushed back by 7 to 10 days to better line up with the commencement of grass growth on the farm. The optimum lambing date is still under review and may well be delayed a further week next year as it tends to be a late farm in terms of grass growth.
An appropriate plan to close up paddocks at the back end of the year was implemented but a grass measurement taken on 6th March showed an average farm cover of just over 500kgs dry matter per hectare indicating lambing date may still be a little too early. Lowland ewes were housed before scanning time in mid-January after which they were penned by litter size to facilitate appropriate pre-lambing nutrition.
Breeding
This year a group of ewes were selected to be mated with a New Zealand Suffolk ram with the remainder joined with two Hampshire Down terminal sires. In order to record information all BETTER Farm sheep participants are EID tagging one day old lambs and linking them to their dams. Using a hand held recording device, other information such as sex of lamb, birth weight, lambing difficulty and mothering ability are recorded for each lambing.
Replacements
Ewe lamb replacements are identified at birth using criteria such as:
- lambs born without assistance
- vigorous lambs that are up and sucking quickly
- dam has lots of milk and good mothering ability.
Kevin is using coloured discs along with the EID tag to identify ewe lambs from the New Zealand Suffolk that tick these boxes as potentially suitable replacements. Problem ewes at lambing are recorded for culling at lambing time as well as inserting a cull tag to make them easily identifiable later in the year. The information recorded coupled with measuring 7 week and weaning weights will be used to cull poorer performing ewes from the flock over time. The plan is to run a Belclare sire for the 2022 breeding season to increase output per ewe over the coming years with more prolific replacements.
Hill Flock - Building Numbers
Lambing
The turnout date for rams to the hill flock was three weeks after the lowland groups. A good proportion of lowland ewes were lambed and out at grass before the hill flock began lambing at the end of the first week in April. The hill ewes will be indoors for a short period at lambing purely for ease of management. As with the lowland ewes similar data will be recorded for the hill flock. When hill ewe numbers increase as planned it is likely that singles will be lambed outdoors with only twin bearing hill ewes being taken into shed for lambing.
Breeding
All hill ewes are being joined with hill breed sires to breed female replacements. To speed up the increase in hill ewe numbers some ewe lamb replacements have been bought in from a known source. In Kevin’s experience sourcing replacements as ewe lambs and hefting them onto the hill grazing along with his homebred replacements as soon as possible works best in terms of their long term performance on the hill. In the coming years when hill ewe numbers stabilise the intention is to cross a lowland breed maternal ram with a proportion of the hill flock to produce lowland replacements.
Lameness control
A number of lowland ewes needed treatment for lameness during the housing period. Some recovered with topical treatment with foot spray but on veterinary advice others needed antibiotic treatment to clear them up. On the basis that prevention is better than cure, Kevin is now planning to install a batch footbath in the existing sheep shed to allow for regular foot bathing of the ewes before and during the housing period. It will be designed to hold about 20 ewes at a time and ensure enough stand in time for the footbath solution to work into the hoof and be effective. He sees it as not just an important labour saving move but it will also improve flock performance whilst reducing the level of antibiotic usage on the farm.