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A total of 3.92 million sheep were kept in the country at the end of December 2016, a 160,000 head increase on the 2015 number for the same date. This is a continuation of the trend over the last few years. Numbers are rising close to the 4m recorded in the first census in December 2005.
Census forms were returned by 92% of the 44,866 registered flock-keepers on the Department of Agriculture’s database. On average, there were 108 sheep per flock, compared with 107 in 2015. However, 69% of flocks contain sheep numbers below the average flock size.
Out of the 3.92m sheep in the country there were 2.64m breeding ewes over 12 months of age, a 5% increase on the 2015 figure.
Goats
The census shows that there was a total of 7,874 goats kept in registered herds at the end of December 2016. This represents a decrease of almost 2,000 (20%) on the figures recorded in respect of 2015.
The greatest concentration was in Galway with 14% of the total, followed by Tipperary (12%), Cork (10%), Westmeath (9%), Longford (7%) and Clare (7%).
Wool prices drop below the cost of shearing
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