General sheep thread

stantheman1979

Go out to the west end of September and you will pick up any amount of horny sheep to suit any budget. You could pay from €40 to €140 depending on age and quality.

kk.man

Is there many of ye still giving meal to ewes who have lambs?

charolais0153

kk.man wrote: »

Is there many of ye still giving meal to ewes who have lambs?

No, cut it out around 3 or 4 weeks ago. After 5 weeks the benefit goes out of it imoGiving less than a lb ofmeal to lambs. Lambs doing really well this year. Be putting tgem through footbath wednesday and might weigh a few to see how theyre doing.

MeTheMan

What age are them lambs?

Still feeding ewes here but cutting it back now.

charolais0153

MeTheMan wrote: »

What age are them lambs?

Still feeding ewes here but cutting it back now.

Feb 25th on i suppose

Lambman

Bought batches off 3 different farmers at home... be the 1 man next year as he seems till have far superior sheep and has them on the heptavac programme which I'm guessing would be rare for hill farmers? Dj98 I didn't buy hoggets yet I said I'd consider it this year... ok man I'm still feeding some ewes the last ones till lamb here because short on grass were there at and didn't get a chance till shift them till other farm yet.

DJ98

charolais0153 wrote: »

No, cut it out around 3 or 4 weeks ago. After 5 weeks the benefit goes out of it imoGiving less than a lb ofmeal to lambs. Lambs doing really well this year. Be putting tgem through footbath wednesday and might weigh a few to see how theyre doing.

Whats the breeding behind those lambs?

charolais0153

DJ98 wrote: »

Whats the breeding behind those lambs?

Suffolk and texel ewes. Suffolk texel and charollais rams.

DJ98

Lambman wrote: »

Bought batches off 3 different farmers at home... be the 1 man next year as he seems till have far superior sheep and has them on the heptavac programme which I'm guessing would be rare for hill farmers? Dj98 I didn't buy hoggets yet I said I'd consider it this year... ok man I'm still feeding some ewes the last ones till lamb here because short on grass were there at and didn't get a chance till shift them till other farm yet.

What would you expect to pay for mountainy hoggets?

Lambman

Off that farmer I'd be happy till give €160... you pay for quality and quality pays.... never asked him yet so don't know what he expects for them.... and he mighten even have any for sale as most hill farmers with hoggets kept on are for there own replacements.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Just to let people know before they buy, about 20% of sheep sold have incorrect parentage recorded and that will have an effect on the breeding results for those sheep.

https://amp.independent.ie/business/farming/news/farming-news/error-in-parentage-of-onefifth-of-animals-36835934.html?__twitter_impression=true

Green farmer

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Just to let people know before they buy, about 20% of sheep sold have incorrect parentage recorded and that will have an effect on the breeding results for those sheep.

https://amp.independent.ie/business/farming/news/farming-news/error-in-parentage-of-onefifth-of-animals-36835934.html?__twitter_impression=true

So the star rating, that claimed a 20-30% accuracy before hand, is now worth even less. Glad after being burnt i no longer pay any attention to the star ratings. Would also make you question the accuracy of teagascs ongoing research in athenry about the 1 star vs 5 star Suffolk’s and texels.

sheepfarmer92

Green farmer wrote: »

So the star rating, that claimed a 20-30% accuracy before hand, is now worth even less. Glad after being burnt i no longer pay any attention to the star ratings. Would also make you question the accuracy of teagascs ongoing research in athenry about the 1 star vs 5 star Suffolk’s and texels.

Big plus 1 - Iv come to the conclusion that its a complete waste of taxpayers money, we run a good few ewes here and never found any advantage in using rams with stars be it 5 star or 1 star

wrangler

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Just to let people know before they buy, about 20% of sheep sold have incorrect parentage recorded and that will have an effect on the breeding results for those sheep.

https://amp.independent.ie/business/farming/news/farming-news/error-in-parentage-of-onefifth-of-animals-36835934.html?__twitter_impression=true

From what i can remember the cattle were found to be just as bad,
All Noirin has achieved is giving Sheep Ireland an excuse for volitillity in the star ratings.

another scandalous waste of public money, you'd think accuracy of information would be the first thing to check

Buford T. Justice XIX

wrangler wrote: »

From what i can remember the cattle were found to be just as bad,
All Noirin has achieved is giving Sheep Ireland an excuse for volitillity in the star ratings.

another scandalous waste of public money, you'd think accuracy of information would be the first thing to check

According to the article, cattle have 7% incorrect, iirc.

roosky

is it not a case though that its the breeders fault for putting in the wrong data rather than an excuse to give out about the efforts of the researchers and sheep Ireland.......in reality they said the same about the EBI when it first came out that it was crap which it was but it has been refined to be one of the best indicators of a dairy cows profitability anywhere in the world.

The reality is they know sheep have wrong parentage so that's a contributing factor in low reliability, if they use genomics and are 100% sure of the parentage that can only be a good thing and improve the reliability

wrangler

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

According to the article, cattle have 7% incorrect, iirc.

Might be 7% at the moment when it's being policed by genomic testing but at the start of testing it was a lot worse.

Bleating Lamb

A bit like the Star system in Cattle imo if you don’t judge a ram or ewe by what you see in front of you you are on the wrong track.Too many people paying over the odds for ‘Stars’

ganmo

roosky wrote: »

is it not a case though that its the breeders fault for putting in the wrong data rather than an excuse to give out about the efforts of the researchers and sheep Ireland.......in reality they said the same about the EBI when it first came out that it was crap which it was but it has been refined to be one of the best indicators of a dairy cows profitability anywhere in the world.

The reality is they know sheep have wrong parentage so that's a contributing factor in low reliability, if they use genomics and are 100% sure of the parentage that can only be a good thing and improve the reliability

It was a question about sheep Ireland from day 1.
The ram buyer didn’t trust the breeders to record the correct figures the CPT flocks are the check on the breeders figures and it seems on their mating figures too.

Without sheep Ireland we’d be blissfully ignorant of getting the wool pulled over our eyes by the breeders

Lambman

Seems an awful waste of money and time if the farmers don't buy into it right and the department don't run it right... shocking %s there till be honest.... opted out off the €10 a ewe scheme this year as a protest more than anything after seeing men bolusing ewes last year for the 1st time till get the payment and still having the same problems if not worse than other years then as a shearer seeing ewes and lambs maggoted left right and centre and more scab than any other year why was dipping not a choice for both lowland and hill sheep? Far more beneficial than alot off the choices they give and I'm not that old but I mind dipping being compulsory.... sometimes listening till the old fellas pays off.

roosky

Lambman wrote: »

Seems an awful waste of money and time if the farmers don't buy into it right and the department don't run it right... shocking %s there till be honest.... opted out off the €10 a ewe scheme this year as a protest more than anything after seeing men bolusing ewes last year for the 1st time till get the payment and still having the same problems if not worse than other years then as a shearer seeing ewes and lambs maggoted left right and centre and more scab than any other year why was dipping not a choice for both lowland and hill sheep? Far more beneficial than alot off the choices they give and I'm not that old but I mind dipping being compulsory.... sometimes listening till the old fellas pays off.

I really respect your stance and you protest but **** it €10 is €10 and i was easy bought.......haha

wrangler

Lambman wrote: »

Seems an awful waste of money and time if the farmers don't buy into it right and the department don't run it right... shocking %s there till be honest.... opted out off the €10 a ewe scheme this year as a protest more than anything after seeing men bolusing ewes last year for the 1st time till get the payment and still having the same problems if not worse than other years then as a shearer seeing ewes and lambs maggoted left right and centre and more scab than any other year why was dipping not a choice for both lowland and hill sheep? Far more beneficial than alot off the choices they give and I'm not that old but I mind dipping being compulsory.... sometimes listening till the old fellas pays off.

The department worked hard to get max benefit from least work in that scheme and have achieved that...
Good management shouldn't have to be enforced, especially something as simple as maggots and scab.
Bolusing without bloodtesting to see what the deficiencies are is a waste of money and even dangerous, a farmer in our KT group has too much selenium in his grass, selenium in the bolus would wreck his sheep

arctictree

Having a few ewe lambs that were scanned empty lambing now. My fault for leaving the Ram with them until the scanner arrived!

Sheep breeder

wrangler wrote: »

From what i can remember the cattle were found to be just as bad,
All Noirin has achieved is giving Sheep Ireland an excuse for volitillity in the star ratings.

another scandalous waste of public money, you'd think accuracy of information would be the first thing to check

Agree with you on this and they can use it to take over the flock books from the society and justify the star results with out question and go down the road of only being able to buy at sheep Ireland sales

Siamsa Sessions

There’s at least one if not two new genetics-related research projects coming soon from Sheep Ireland. Not sure of the details but I think I saw on Twitter that they’re about checking and blood-testing sheep to increase parentage accuracy, etc.

In fairness to them, they always acknowledged the issue with accuracy. They mightn’t have solved it but didn’t hide it either. Maybe they should have got Terry Prone or some other PR type parasite to better handle their image!

Willfarman

arctictree wrote: »

Having a few ewe lambs that were scanned empty lambing now. My fault for leaving the Ram with them until the scanner arrived!

Plenty of time for them this year. The few extra lambs will be no harm to your pocket in October.

mcgiggles

arctictree wrote:

Having a few ewe lambs that were scanned empty lambing now. My fault for leaving the Ram with them until the scanner arrived!

Same! Though we chose to leave ram out with them to see if he would do anything.. 4 lleyns, 2 gorgeous singles the last 2 days. Lambed by themselves outside.. Really like them, we're hoping to get more of them this year!

Cran

ganmo wrote: »

It was a question about sheep Ireland from day 1.
The ram buyer didn’t trust the breeders to record the correct figures the CPT flocks are the check on the breeders figures and it seems on their mating figures too.

Without sheep Ireland we’d be blissfully ignorant of getting the wool pulled over our eyes by the breeders

I really don’t understand why people buy rams off breeders theh don’t know or trust. Before how ram looks or figures it’s my first requirement....

arctictree

mcgiggles wrote: »

Same! Though we chose to leave ram out with them to see if he would do anything.. 4 lleyns, 2 gorgeous singles the last 2 days. Lambed by themselves outside.. Really like them, we're hoping to get more of them this year!

It's a lucky dip really. Have had two lamb late outside so far. One live, one dead. Hopefully I'll get a couple more....

Ard_MC

Sheep breeder wrote: »

Agree with you on this and they can use it to take over the flock books from the society and justify the star results with out question and go down the road of only being able to buy at sheep Ireland sales

I cant see there ever being just sheep ireland sales in the country. Thats only run for promotion of the stars really. Flock books arent really worth much if the data in them turns out to be wrong..its main purpose is parentage recording.