Farmers in hill sheep societies are well-versed in breeding programmes, with a wealth of information contributing to breeding decisions. While this information is invaluable at farm level, the full benefit to the industry is, in many cases, not being realised.

This situation is gradually changing for the best. Mayo and Galway sheep farmers took a decision a few years ago to harness the full benefits of performance recording and were the first hill sheep groups to sign up to Sheep Ireland’s breed improvement programme (LambPlus). A number of hill sheep societies in Donegal have taken the same decision. Their decision and progress to date has also been greatly aided by a close connection with Teagasc through former sheep specialist Shane McHugh and sheep advisers John Cannon and Seamus Campbell.

The Irish Farmers Journal recently visited a number of the newly participating breeders to gain an overview of their farming systems and reasons for joining.

Farmer one: Show credentials backed up with positive performance

Philip Faulkner and his son Patrick farm a flock of 200 ewes in Tullyally, Redcastle.

Philip Faulkner (pictured left, with Teagasc adviser Seamus Campbell), his son Patrick and brother Gerard are well-versed with the show ring. Their connection to showing sheep dates back over 50 years.

While showing has and will always remain a passion for the Faulkners, breeding decisions are not dictated solely by the show ring, with a strong commercial focus brought to the fore when selecting replacement ewe and ram lambs.

Philip farms Perth-type Scottish Blackface sheep and looks for size and power when selecting replacement ewe lambs and ram lambs for retaining and selling as hoggets. “There are some fancy aspects you might select for showing, but that won’t sell your rams. Quality sheep come to the fore in any show or sale and at the end of the day, it’s a strong one with plenty of power that people want. You can’t put a carcase on it if you don’t have size and good conformation. There is obviously a balance depending on the quality of the hill and this rightly influences breeding decisions and a farmer’s own preference.”

Sheep have been weaned for about three weeks at this stage, with replacement ewe lambs and potential breeding ram lambs selected. Ewe lambs go back up on the hill once weaned, as Philip wants to maintain their hardiness. Ram lambs are retained on a small area of lowland. They are trained to eat meals at this stage and remain outdoors until grass supplies are depleted.

Depending on the weather, rams are supplemented indoors or outdoors with hay and meals. There is generally in the region of eight to 10 rams retained for sale.

The remaining male lambs are all brought to French slaughter weights, with the strongest finished off grass and meals, while lighter lambs are brought indoors later in the season and finished on a concentrate diet in January.

Last year, lambs were sold at store stage due to the strong market. “The store trade was excellent. We sold 37kg Scotch lambs for over €80. There was no way it would pay to gain another 5kg to 6kg indoors.”

Selection and preparation

Along with good size and conformation, Philip focuses on selecting sheep that have good feet and a good mouth. “The feet and mouth are the most important. You need good feet to carry weight and cover large areas of ground and a good mouth to graze on the hills. I’d have no hesitation in keeping ewes to seven or eight years of age as long as they can perform on the hill.”

Twin-bearing ewes are usually brought indoors to lamb with singles lambing on the hills. Twins also return to the hill shortly after lambing. The target in the system is to wean one lamb per ewe mated on the hills. Plainer Scottish Blackface ewes are mated to a Texel ram to increase the sale value of progeny.

Hogget rams for sale in early October are receiving preferential treatment. They are being grazed on average-quality grass and are receiving about 0.7kg (1.5lb) concentrates.

Philip says the feeding is not solely to help have rams looking their best. He says that a low level of feeding will also help rams to be in prime condition for mating on the hills and afford them the opportunity to lose some body condition without affecting performance.

He welcomes the society’s decision to start performance recording.

“The competition and quality of sheep is very high in Donegal. You often think you have good sheep until you go to sales and see the quality other breeders are also producing. Recording will complement this quality and, hopefully, will be another reason to attract repeat buyers.”

Farmer two: Getting the best breed mix to suit land type

Tony Carter farms a 150-ewe flock in Ludden, Buncrana.

The breeding programme run by Tony Carter (pictured left, with Teagasc adviser Seamus Campbell) is focused on selecting the best breed mix to suit land type on his farm. In recent years, he has bred Lanark into his Perth ewes, a move he feels delivered a better-bodied ewe that could perform on the type of hills he is farming on. This was achieved by joining a half Lanark/half Perth-bred ram on to Perth ewes and retaining their progeny.

With a few years’ progeny now in the flock, the next move Tony is planning is putting a Perth-type ram back on these ewes.

His reasoning is that he feels some Lanark breeding in ewes is a positive, but progressing too far down this line will result in ewes getting too small.

“The Lanark/Scotch ram (photo below) has bred sheep I’m very happy with, but I want to change before I run into any problems.

‘‘If I can get a Perth-type ram with a bit of power that will put some height into the ewes, I think I’ll be going down the right track.”

Tony sees huge potential in performance recording and tracking specific breed lines. “Good breeding is critical. You can’t do this without knowing the breeding in the flock. What ewes perform with a particular cross has a huge say on lamb quality. I try to match ewes that I think will breed best with the horned ram. Those that I think won’t are bred with a Bluefaced Leicester or Texel ram.”

This policy of breeding 35 ewes each to a Bluefaced Leicester and Texel ram and the remaining 80 ewes to a horned ram greatly increases the sale value of progeny, with male lambs achieving higher performance and female progeny attracting a premium as replacements for lowland flocks.

Breeding records

At the time of the visit, Tony was assessing his ewe flock with a number of tasks being performed.

Any ewes showing faults since weaning were identified for culling, while ewes were also being assessed on body condition.

Ewes will be flocked again in early September and will receive a fluke dose before going to the ram and a cobalt bullet.

He says this process works well as it cuts down on handling during and post-breeding. At this stage, ewes will also be segregated for breeding and grouped for single-sire mating on lower-lying paddocked areas.

This will continue for two to three weeks before they are put back to the hill with a horned ram to pick up any repeats. Ewes bred to horned rams are raddled on the inside of the horn with blue or red branding fluid to denote sire type at birth (photo, right).

This year, lambs were tagged with a coloured management tag at birth. Production records are collected through the Sheep Ireland lambing notebook or through a farmer’s own tried-and-trusted methods.

The target lambing date is mid-March, with Tony explaining: “You can’t beat a March lamb [ewes bred to lamb from 13 March – peak lambing around St Patrick’s Day] when it comes to selling later in the year. It takes a bit more management, but it suits my system. I lamb most ewes outdoors and generally bring the last 50 to 60 ewes indoors to lamb as I find that these are the ones you often take your eye off and have more losses with.”

Performance in the flock is impressive, with last year’s scanning results recording 87 twin-bearing ewes, 60 single-bearing ewes and a small number of triplets. Health and selection are viewed as central to performance.

“It’s hard to beat a young ewe. Any ewe with a poor mouth, udder or feet ends up being the one that gives the most problems and takes the most time,” Tony says.

A health programme is in place, which includes regular cobalt supplementation to ewes and lambs, clostridial disease and pasteurella vaccination and planned fluke treatment averaging three to four doses per year.

Farmer three: Cheviots performing well on tough terrain

James, Eileen and Amy Lorinyenko farm a flock of 150 Cheviot ewes and 15 rams for sale outside Donegal town .

Donegal members of the Wicklow Mountain Sheep Breeders Society has also committed to a performance-recording programme.

Breeder James Lorinyenko (pictured) thinks the decision by the society is a step in the right direction. “Farmers in the group have been recording for decades as it is. The only difference I suppose is that it will now be official. We have to start thinking more about the pen and paper. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with what we are doing, it just means we have more information to hand when making breeding decisions.”

James also thinks that having performance-recording information will benefit sales of Cheviot sheep through the society. “People like to see information at sales and, in my mind, the more information that’s available, the more confidence you can have in the sheep you are buying. Looks will always be critical but having information such as the litter size, weight gain or background breeding is something we would all love to have. I suppose you could liken it to buying a car – a car may look great but you won’t buy it without knowing its engine type or number of miles on the clock.”

Breed type

James agrees with the society’s focus on maintaining breeding programmes that ensure Cheviot sheep keep their character and remain true to type. The breed focus on the Lorinyenko farm is to maintain a balanced breeding programme and not to go too extreme in the direction of terminal or maternal breeding.

“For me, Cheviot sheep have to maintain their maternal characteristics of hardiness, but there is no point in having maternal sheep if the wether lambs for selling or finishing have no carcase to carry any weight. Size, length and hardiness are all critical, while I also keep an eye on the shoulder width and feet and select sheep with a good skin and tight fleece, but not too bare that it makes sheep less hardy on the hills. I like a clean head and legs with white hair and a nice, clean flat bone. I tend to lean more on shorter, pointed ears; some producers say these are generally hardier.

“If, at times, I think the ewes are getting too sweet, I’ll use a rougher type of ram that will bring a bit of size, length and shape back into the mix.

‘‘The link-up with the Wicklow society is good, as it gives us another avenue to source replacements from,” James says.

Selecting replacements

The preferred ewe lambs and rams (selected for sale as breeding rams) selected for replacements are those with a good size and weight for age with a particular emphasis on hardiness.

“I find that ewe lambs and rams identify themselves. There are breed lines that always deliver the goods and I try to focus on keeping these ewes as the foundation for breeding.

‘‘I’ll also look at litter size as I’d prefer selecting twins weighing 40kg than a single weighing 48kg.”

The selection policy stems from land type on the farm. There are approximately 81ha (200 acres) of hill or mountain grazing, with vegetation comprising a mixture of peat grazing, heather and wild grasses and 36ha of lowland grazing, a high percentage of which is marginal in nature. Sheep that cannot hold their own and perform on marginal lands are culled.

Breeding preparations

The focus on the farm has turned to breeding preparations and management of weaned lambs.

Lambing performance is directly linked to management before and during breeding.

The target once ewes are weaned is to get them back on the hills and recovering in body condition. A supply of grass is currently accumulating on lowland fields and this will be used to deliver a nutritional boost to ewes pre-breeding.

“I’ll bring the ewes down about two to three weeks before breeding, depending on grass supplies. Having them in good nick definitely helps to achieve compact lambing and boost litter size. The flock lambs to match grass growth at the last week of March and generally scans 1.5 lambs to 1.6 lambs, which is plenty for the type of ground.”

Managing replacements

Ewe lambs are given access to good quality grass post-weaning and trained to eat meals.

This is done at this stage as the next time these sheep will be offered meals is pre-lambing as two-year olds. If sheep are not trained to eat meals at that stage, it will lead to sheep taking longer to get accustomed to a change in diet and knock-on effects of ewes lambing in poor body condition, lower milk yield and the birth of weaker lambs.

Meal feeding to ewe lambs is front-loaded in the early winter months, with the aim of getting lambs to a heavier weight and preventing any setback in performance or compromising lambs reaching their potential mature weight.

“Just €5 will buy a lot of meal, feeding at a quarter or half pound a day and will easily return €20 to €30 in value in having sheep reach their potential,” James says.

Land type advice

Teagasc adviser Seamus Campbell advises producers to select a breed or breed type that best suits their land type.

He says: “All breeds have positives and negatives and these traits come to the fore in different systems or grazing environments.

‘‘Teagasc is encouraging more hill sheep breeders from the Scottish Blackface groups; Brockagh Perth Blackface Sheep Breeders’ Association, Donegal Blackface Sheep Breeders’ Association and the Tir Conaill Scotch Blackface Sheep Breeders’ Association and Donegal Cheviot breeders to partake in recording initiatives.

‘‘Hopefully, sales in September and October will encourage more breeders to become involved. This information is central to every breed’s progression and also to providing farmers with invaluable information to make optimum breeding decisions.”