Some of the best minds for creating and developing new ideas are in the agricultural sector.

There are lots of examples of on-farm innovation or everyday practices that have become the norm for some farmers but offer the potential for other farmers to grasp on to.

Below is a selection of some of these with the simplest of ideas proving useful.

Transporting ewes and lambs

Turning ewes and recently born lambs outdoors can be a slow task with lambs slow to walk and ewes not keen to leave lambs.

A quad trailer can quickly solve this but many sheep farms do not have quads.

A simple setup seen in the Athenry demo flock a few years ago was a penning addition to a transport box that can be used to transport ewes and lambs.

The transport box for the Athenry demo flock could make a good aid on many farms.

Other specially designed units have come to the market for transporting ewes and lambs around the yard.

Ewes with large teats

This idea came up at the recent Teagasc sheep conference and involves dealing with udders which are only suckled on one side and lambs refusing to suckle a large teat.

As the udder fills with milk, it is under more pressure and can get sore with the ewe then not standing for the lamb(s) to suckle.

The resolution was to apply tape such as insulating tape to the teat that is being suckled to force the lamb(s) to suckle the large teat and bring it back to a normal size.

Storing frozen colostrum

The convenience of colostrum substitutes has reduced the practice of milking surplus colostrum and freezing it for when it is needed.

Some farmers point to delays in defrosting colostrum or difficulties in having smaller volumes available as a barrier.

Numerous tips have been submitted to the Irish Farmers Journal in recent years.

One handy tip is to measure a volume of colostrum in a jug and then store it in a zip lock or leak proof freezer bag.

Milking surplus colostrum from ewes for use at a later time is the next best thing to a lamb suckling its ewe.

The premises behind the tip is that there will be a greater surface area of colostrum exposed when thawing leading to a much quicker thaw.

Other tips for having smaller volumes quickly available include storing colostrum in an empty butter carton, yoghurt pots, etc.

Colour differentiation

Numbering ewes and lambs with spray marking is a quick aid to identifying ewes and lambs in group penning or when turned outdoors.

There are some flockowners considering lambing outdoors this year given the favourable grass supplies.

Numbering a ewe can be challenging when in an individual lambing pens never mind outdoors.

Some farmers lambing outdoors put a good spray or marking fluid number on ewes when letting to grass for lambing.

In this way, only lambs need to be numbered in the field. The colour used to number animals can be changed to denote the week they were born or where running twins and singles in one batch having a different colour will allow quick identification.

Note boards

A simple aid, having note boards on lambing pens or a main board in the lambing shed, pays dividends where there is help coming into the yard at lambing and different people are dealing with the same sheep.

Boards which can be used to take notes provide vital information where more than one person is working in the shed.

Even where help is not coming into the yard, they can be useful to record aspects such as time of lambing, feeding, etc, or any noteworthy information that will fit into a recording protocol.

Ewe sheep restraint

The ewe sheep restraint marketed by O’Donovan Engineering aims to help farmers handle a difficult lambing easier when no help is at hand.

The ewe restraint works simply by immobilising the ewe by placing its two front legs in the apparatus.

The ewes’ front legs and head are brought together immobilising the sheep in a lying position and thereby allowing the farmer to concentrate on aiding the ewe to lamb.

It retails for €10 including VAT.

Wall-mounted hurdles

Sheep sheds differ greatly in their make-up with modern sheds having smaller pens, while some older sheds that were not built with sheep housing in mind have large group pens that make catching or handling ewes more difficult.

Gates that can be hung on the wall of the pen allow for easier catching of ewes or setting up of temporary pens in the group pen.

An idea picked up a few years ago on the farm of Connie Healy in Cork included having a number of spare hurdles hanging on the pen wall that could be quickly retrieved and used to tighten down the space ewes have access to.

A similar setup in smaller pens with lambing hurdles allows for a temporary lambing pen to be set up quickly in the corner of a pen to handle a ewe or temporarily segregate it from other ewes which may be trying to claim lambs.

Multi-purpose housing

There has been a continued switch in some parts of the west and northwest from suckling/beef farming to sheep.

With a focus on reducing labour but keeping costs in check, some farmers are aiming to make better use of available facilities and have a dual purpose of housing sheep for a short period at lambing and using sheds at other times for tasks such as calving cows, finishing cattle, etc.

The photo of the feeding barrier was taken on Lisbeg Farm, Co Galway.

There are two heights at which the barrier can be set, with the raised height offering the option of giving extra space for sheep at lambing while the barrier can be lowered when the shed is used as an intake point for weanlings for the farm’s bull-beef operation.

Weighing lambs/ concentrates

There is a slow increase in the number of commercial farmers recording lamb performance from birth while it is a mainstay or should be in pedigree flocks.

A simple luggage scales which weighs up to 20kg to 30kg easily can be combined with a chord to weigh.

A lamb's weight or the weight of concentrates contained in a given container can be quickly gauged by hanging off a weighing scales.

For those who have a scales clock that can be removed from the weighing crate, hanging the clock at a convenient height and placing the lamb in a bucket can work equally well. Remember to deduct the weight of the bucket.

Either of these setups can be used to gauge the weight of concentrates in a given container to allow precise supplementation.

Adjustable gate upgrade for Lyons

The sheep shed at UCD Lyons research farm has seen a major upgrade to dividing gates.

The old gates were in poor structural condition and an upgrade was needed.

The old system consisted of a post sitting in a sleeve in the middle of the pen with two gates latched on from stanchions on either side of the pen.

The new design has seen the elimination of the post in the centre of the pen with a bolt on the front of the gate and a latch on the top to provide strength given the length of the span of the shed.

It also makes mechanical cleaning of the shed much quicker.

The gates also have the ability to be raised at the stanchion as bedding under ewes’ builds up.

The gate had done away with a pen dividing post allowing for easier cleaning.

A bolt with friction is used to adjust the height, similar to how an adjustable-length gate works. The gates were a bespoke design, fabricated by O’Donovan Engineering.

Adding mesh to the gates was done as trials with lambs can also occur in the shed. Total cost per span, or set of gates, was €700.

The big advantage with the gate is that the height can be altered easily as the level of bedding builds.

Lambing pen water supply

Having a convenient water supply in individual pens cuts down on a lot of work hauling water to pens, while buckets being turned over or soiled water can limit ewe intake of water which is critical for milk yield. Setups such as plastic piping running along individual pens with holes cut for water points, such as that shown by Offaly farmers Ken and Richard Mathews or demonstrated are increasing in frequency.

Some systems work by adopting a specially made penning section while temporary penning solutions often simply work by running the plastic piping along on the second top rung of hurdles.

Another simple aid may be to have a length of hosing available or a water source that cuts down on time spent walking from the water connection.