General sheep thread

roosky

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Apart for “playing their part”, “pulling on the green jersey”, and other meaningless rubbish, will farmers gain anything from EID?

From what I gather, it’s useful for lads with large numbers and helps with general management. But for others who manage well enough without them, will there be any benefits from having it forced on us?

No benefit for small flocks, like to get full benefit you need a eid enabled scales and a handheld reader which is a big investment.

You can buy an eid reader for your phone but its a cod if you still need the dispatch docs, would be brilliant if you could scan the tags, populate the dispatch on your phone like with cattle and then send it to buyer or factory

Was in athleague yesterday and three lads reading tags and putting them on the system so it would pay the factory to pay us the price of the eid

Cran

wrangler wrote: »

Even the performance of the siblings of your rams sires and grandsires will affect the stars of your rams,
We had it here in our pedigree flock, we used two 5 star rams here for five years and when we had everything bred by them, sheep Ireland decided they were only 2 star and downgraded our whole flock.
They haven't a clue, most sheep farmers wouldn't contribute to them if they had a choice.....you'll breed better sheep if you buy your rams by eye.
We used to give a couple of rams for performance recording and invariably they'd come back as rated hard lambing, Sheep Ireland would take them for October so they'd miss mating the adult sheep, so ironically these ''hard laming'' rams would be put with our ewe lambs here and there wouldn't be a bother.....you couldn't make it up

Everyone entitled to their opinion and up to everyone to decide for themselves.

Personally I think SI are on the way to offering Irish sheep farmers real solid information. First years they were always going to have trouble with data quality and fluctuations as the quality and accuracy of data was worked on. As genomics becomes more affordable & widly used this should help as well. It’s a statistical tool to assist buying rams alongside stockmsnshio not to replace it.

Siamsa Sessions

roosky wrote: »

No benefit for small flocks, like to get full benefit you need a eid enabled scales and a handheld reader which is a big investment.

You can buy an eid reader for your phone but its a cod if you still need the dispatch docs, would be brilliant if you could scan the tags, populate the dispatch on your phone like with cattle and then send it to buyer or factory

Was in athleague yesterday and three lads reading tags and putting them on the system so it would pay the factory to pay us the price of the eid

I’ve no problem with people who have large flocks - good luck to them. They have economy of scale for input costs and enough ewes to develop a decent cross-breed that suits their system. In fact part of me would love to have 400 ewes instead of our current 40.

What sickens me though is the Dept view that only large enterprises matter and most, if not all, new initiatives like EID are geared towards the big flocks.

ganmo

wrangler wrote: »

Electronic tagging compulsory from 1st Oct on all sheep......That's all we need

I didn’t see that!

...Arse

wrangler

Cran wrote: »

Everyone entitled to their opinion and up to everyone to decide for themselves.

Personally I think SI are on the way to offering Irish sheep farmers real solid information. First years they were always going to have trouble with data quality and fluctuations as the quality and accuracy of data was worked on. As genomics becomes more affordable & widly used this should help as well. It’s a statistical tool to assist buying rams alongside stockmsnshio not to replace it.

Last meeting I was at SI were recommending that everyone should have ''team'' of rams so that if they bought some 5 stars that were'nt 5 star, they wouldn't be burned too badly.
What happened to having dependable scores, how can you build genetics with that talk.

Cran

wrangler wrote: »

Last meeting I was at SI were recommending that everyone should have ''team'' of rams so that if they bought some 5 stars that were'nt 5 star, they wouldn't be burned too badly.
What happened to having dependable scores, how can you build genetics with that talk.

Not to argue but I think that advise was an explanation on how accuracies increase if using more than one 5 star ram, it’s purely a statistical calculation. Recording is based on data & it takes time to build both the data and accuarcy of that data.

roosky

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

I’ve no problem with people who have large flocks - good luck to them. They have economy of scale for input costs and enough ewes to develop a decent cross-breed that suits their system. In fact part of me would love to have 400 ewes instead of our current 40.

What sickens me though is the Dept view that only large enterprises matter and most, if not all, new initiatives like EID are geared towards the big flocks.

I have the same "no problem"......my problem is jealousy!

I agree with what your saying but realistically it is very hard to target smaller flocks (<100 ewes) as the majority of them are not profit focused and so wont implement the new initiative or at least try it.

Lambman

When your on about %s these rams are only coming up in the 40% accuracy in both maternal and terminal the farmers only at it since 2014/15 and told me the accuracy is low because he imported the sheep from England.... tall tale or another possibility of why they have changed?

Sheep breeder

A lot of the problem with SI is only some of the flocks of each breed are involved and not all the flocks In each breed and this alone is the biggest factor as all flocks are not crossed referenced to given evaluation a true reflection.

Cran

Lambman wrote: »

When your on about %s these rams are only coming up in the 40% accuracy in both maternal and terminal the farmers only at it since 2014/15 and told me the accuracy is low because he imported the sheep from England.... tall tale or another possibility of why they have changed?

I think at the moment anything over 40% is very good data, 30% to 40% is decent and useable and below 30% more or less ignore to volatile to change. Examples line here were lot of data available Rams used cpt, relatives used as stockrams elsewhere etc accuracies at about 50%. While a ram I brought in from France with top figures there only at 24% so not really useable figures at the moment.
Guess with anything though easy explain 1 Star bad 5 Star good, accuarcy of data harder done. They have tried to tighten this up with needing certain accuarcy to get stars, giving breeders rating on their data quality and restricting their sale on both.

wrangler

Cran wrote: »

I think at the moment anything over 40% is very good data, 30% to 40% is decent and useable and below 30% more or less ignore to volatile to change. Examples line here were lot of data available Rams used cpt, relatives used as stockrams elsewhere etc accuracies at about 50%. While a ram I brought in from France with top figures there only at 24% so not really useable figures at the moment.
Guess with anything though easy explain 1 Star bad 5 Star good, accuarcy of data harder done. They have tried to tighten this up with needing certain accuarcy to get stars, giving breeders rating on their data quality and restricting their sale on both.

,

I'm sure you've seen the figures, 5 star claiming an extra kg at weaning over one star......thats not enough to attract you to pay a bonus for 5 star and take the chance and it only 40% accurate.
Even if it was 100% acc lambs don't live long enough to take enough advantage
Apparently the ewes have to be 5 star as well to get that extra kg.....wherever you'd get those

Green farmer

Having got burnt, I’ve no faith in the star rating. Shir aren’t the results based on what figures and growth rates the breeder chooses to supply.nothing to stop them making up figures. Can you imagine doing an exam with the book open and posting on your paper on to be marked. Keep it simple, buy from someone you trust, that runs their flock on the same principals as yourself.

Cran

wrangler wrote: »

,

I'm sure you've seen the figures, 5 star claiming an extra kg at weaning over one star......thats not enough to attract you to pay a bonus for 5 star and take the chance and it only 40% accurate.
Even if it was 100% acc lambs don't live long enough to take enough advantage
Apparently the ewes have to be 5 star as well to get that extra kg.....wherever you'd get those

I think that 1kg is at weaning though rather than point of sale. Can’t just use kg as reference stars also incorporate survivabity, ease of lambing and other factors that impact profitability. Also sheep breed quicker than cattle so generation improvement should be easier to achieve rather than large individual improvements.

As with any data recording it takes time, genomics should hopefully increase data accuracy and then improvements.

Cran

Green farmer wrote: »

Keep it simple, buy from someone you trust, that runs their flock on the same principals as yourself.

100% agree should be first thing when choosing a ram, but any reason why that person can’t be recorded and then pick their good figure rams?

Green farmer

Cran wrote: »

100% agree should be first thing when choosing a ram, but any reason why that person can’t be recorded and then pick their good figure rams?

No reason whatsoever. If I wanted a charly, I’d call to you because I’d put merit and faith in your figures, because I think that your a progressive farmer, trying to make genetic improvement in your stock. However can this be said of all the lads sending figures in ?

Willfarman

With such variables dictated by weather and land type , feeding regime, parasite control, and then good old blagardism on the paperwork side of things it's a load of nonsense that most of us disregard.. stars are for kids spelling competitions.. the only way to buy a ram is what you see in front of you.

wrangler

Green farmer wrote: »

No reason whatsoever. If I wanted a charly, I’d call to you because I’d put merit and faith in your figures, because I think that your a progressive farmer, trying to make genetic improvement in your stock. However can this be said of all the lads sending figures in ?

If an animal can be a five star one year and two the next either genetics isn't all it's supposed to be or recording is rubbish, I know which I suspect and it mightn't be the breeders that rubbishing it either.
In the era of LMI you could depend on the figures, ie if you targetted high LMI animals you could consistently improve your breeding,
On farm that is not the case now, if it's not dependable with the pedigree breeders, it's definitely no good for commercial farmers, they can't do like Sheep Ireland where they bring in a team of rams and get rid of what doesn't perform. Buying rams is a long term investment

Green farmer

wrangler wrote: »

If an animal can be a five star one year and two the next

That sums it up, how can you put faith in a system like that ? I’ll tell you what’s important to me. A breeder with several hundred sheep, who runs stock hard, culls hard, because they don’t have time for anything else and only sells rams theyd be happy to use themselves on a commercial basis, that aren’t full of meal.

Siamsa Sessions

roosky wrote: »

I have the same "no problem"......my problem is jealousy!

I agree with what your saying but realistically it is very hard to target smaller flocks (<100 ewes) as the majority of them are not profit focused and so wont implement the new initiative or at least try it.

I agree with you. Would new entrants help in this regard? And by new, I don't mean simply young. I guess I'm talking about myself really, as I turned 40 last year so am officially not a young farmer. But I'm only farming with the last 2.5 years and open to all new ideas/schemes (*too* enthusiastic and optimistic trying new things in some cases!)

Siamsa Sessions

Sheep Ireland have a lot of work to do, and they got off to a poor start with winning farmers over, but I'm glad they're trying and hopefully genomics will improve things.

By the way, how do the ICBF and suckler cow systems work for stars? Did they have the same upgrading/downgrading of cows' stars when they started off?

wrangler

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Sheep Ireland have a lot of work to do, and they got off to a poor start with winning farmers over, but I'm glad they're trying and hopefully genomics will improve things.

By the way, how do the ICBF and suckler cow systems work for stars? Did they have the same upgrading/downgrading of cows' stars when they started off?

It was fairly volatile too, in fact it's not that long ago that a limosin bull was seriously downgraded and it not declared until the breeding season was over.
A lot of farmers were seriously worried about it's effect on them complying with the genomic scheme

charolais0153

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Sheep Ireland have a lot of work to do, and they got off to a poor start with winning farmers over, but I'm glad they're trying and hopefully genomics will improve things.

By the way, how do the ICBF and suckler cow systems work for stars? Did they have the same upgrading/downgrading of cows' stars when they started off?

Ya its going to lead to narrowing of gene pool. French animals in partivular are given too low of ratings and their arent enough coming in. I dont have faoth in icbf and its figures to improve stock ratner theyll just maintain the standard thats there already

roosky

charolais0153 wrote: »

Ya its going to lead to narrowing of gene pool. French animals in partivular are given too low of ratings and their arent enough coming in. I dont have faoth in icbf and its figures to improve stock ratner theyll just maintain the standard thats there already

the imported animals get a 3 star regardless as there is no data for them, so they are likely to change.

wrangler

roosky wrote: »

the imported animals get a 3 star regardless as there is no data for them, so they are likely to change.

When we were buying semen from france there was better data available for the rams than here and still some got less than 3 stars, That why I say SI couldn't be bothered getting their act together on imports, also that English ram I keep referring to... came in with poor performance and yet was declared a 5 star, I can safely say his progeny was the worst ram we ever bought here......OH used to swear by SI then.
I attended the very first meeting of sheep Ireland and and when I voiced my doubts (even then) they accused me of trying to wind them up......didn't bother after that.

ganmo

I jus had a thought of what I’m gonna do with the eids goin to the factory...put every other one in the wrong ear

arctictree

Lads, have a couple of lambs here that got joint ill about a month ago in one leg only. So I couldn't catch them in the field to inject them. I have them in now and have been giving them an injection for 5 days with no improvement. Am I wasting my time and they are permanently damaged?

roosky

arctictree wrote: »

Lads, have a couple of lambs here that got joint ill about a month ago in one leg only. So I couldn't catch them in the field to inject them. I have them in now and have been giving them an injection for 5 days with no improvement. Am I wasting my time and they are permanently damaged?

Same issue here, they got 7 days of noroclav and after three days they were back to square 1, might put two of them down, horrible to see them in pain

kk.man

arctictree wrote: »

Lads, have a couple of lambs here that got joint ill about a month ago in one leg only. So I couldn't catch them in the field to inject them. I have them in now and have been giving them an injection for 5 days with no improvement. Am I wasting my time and they are permanently damaged?

I can't answer if you are wasting your time but the dosage is 10 days I think. Imo what's a few more ml of noroclav going to cost...

MeTheMan

Grand day for it!

Willfarman

When you think they are cured keep injecting for another week.