The system of calving suckler cows in early spring and lambing the ewes in mid-March worked particularly well on Tullamore Farm in 2019.

At the open day, the reproductive performance of the ewes was one of the main focuses. The ewes on the farm are Mule ewes, progeny of a Scottish Blackfaced ewe and a Bluefaced Leicester ram. These sheep were selected to achieve a high output.

Scanning

This year’s scanning records are based on a group with a high percentage of hoggets and a small batch of ewe lambs. Overall, the flock scanned at 2.23 lambs per ewe joined.

The mature ewes scanned at 2.3 lambs per ewe joined with a barren rate of 1.5%. Of these, 8% were singles, 49% were doubles and 43% were triplets. The hoggets had a scanning rate of 1.78 and the ewe lambs scanned at 0.87.

Ewes are let out rearing a maximum of two lambs. Cross-fostering is practised where possible but this option is limited with a low number of single ewes. In 2019, the 30 surplus lambs were reared artificially on two bucket feeders.

Mortality

In terms of mortality during lambing, provisional analysis shows it is in the region of 8-9%. Overall mortality is running at almost 13%.

There was an outbreak of chlamydial or enzootic abortion in older ewes. This can be directly linked to the loss of about 15 lambs. There were also three ewes lost in this outbreak.