Athenry open day

rangler1

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

One thing that puzzles me was the advice to let sheep eat 3 days in a paddock before moving them before they eat regrowth.

In dairting, they advise us to move cattle on every 2 days before they begin to eat regrowth.

Does the grass respond differently to different animals grazing it? Why does the advice change for the different animals?

Probably not to frighten the farmers...big difference in fencing sheep and cow, teagasc probably reckon they'd be doing well to achieve three day paddocks on sheep farms, they did emphasise yesterday that the quicker you graze it off the better. they were talking about 100 ewes on a 2 ha paddock and split it with a fence

Green farmer

roosky wrote: »

the current trial is nz pedigree v Irish pedigree and Irish five star v Irish 1 star so they had to go with pedigree sheep for that reason.

Talking to them yesterday the next step is to compare them to commercial sheep

Hopefully. Maybe next phase they'll consider including the Romney.

razor8

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

They have a 30 year old breeding index for commercial traits, the others wouldn't have much information at all on their breeding other than a line of parents with little recording done.

The whole 2.2% lambing difficulty could be a game changer for many. Imagine not having to assist with 13% of your ewes lambing. Turns into a part time job then:)

Exactly. A bit of recording goes along way

razor8

Cran wrote: »

I think 44% is decent enough at the moment for accuracy - no?

Don't really see the benefit of the NZ trial TBH, or maybe I'm missing something?

Texel are a maternal breed in NZ I believe and Suffolk a terminal, while here aim is to make them jack of all trades which really misses the point of NZ sheep farming.

Why not line them up against additional maternals such as Belclare / Lleyn / Mule for maternal traits and then include easier lambing terminal sires such as Charollais / Vedeen as well as irish Suffolks. Would including other breeds not give a better understanding of Irish sheep farming vs NZ rather than just 2 breeds?

A lot of breeders have 90% accuracy for some traits in the uk for sheep bred on grass systems. They look a lot better animals than on display yesterday

To my knowledge there is also a lot of terminal nz texels bred which can effectively makes them a dual purpose ram

It would be very hard to compare them to mules seeing as there cross bred. So much variance in the bred. I'm sure you've seen that yourself in ballinrobe

My father always said a good ram of any breed has its place it's just finding them

Green farmer

Cran wrote: »

Don't really see the benefit of the NZ trial TBH, or maybe I'm missing something?


Why not line them up against additional maternals such as Belclare / Lleyn / Mule for maternal traits and then include easier lambing terminal sires such as Charollais / Vedeen as well as irish Suffolks. Would including other breeds not give a better understanding of Irish sheep farming vs NZ rather than just 2 breeds?

Think you nailed it cran. Why choose a terminal breed like Suffolk when your study is all about maternal qualities. Both stands before the nz were all focused on encouraging us to increase the maternal side of our farms, to run ewes with higher lambing rates. How can you study nz sheep without including the Romney ? Pretty sure it makes up 65 % of the nz flock.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green farmer wrote: »

Think you nailed it cran. Why choose a terminal breed like Suffolk when your study is all about maternal qualities. Both stands before the nz were all focused on encouraging us to increase the maternal side of our farms, to run ewes with higher lambing rates. How can you study nz sheep without including the Romney ? Pretty sure it makes up 65 % of the nz flock.

Because there are few Romneys in Ireland? So using Romney sheep would serve no purpose in comparing the Irish figures with the NZ figures, just adding cost for no purpose?

Cran

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Because there are few Romneys in Ireland? So using Romney sheep would serve no purpose in comparing the Irish figures with the NZ figures, just adding cost for no purpose?

Thats a fair point but it doesn't take a genius to say look at Suffolks now and Suffolks 20 years ago and say it's gone down a wrong route if you want ease of management. There is probably more in common between Charollais and NZ suffolk TBH than local suffolks aside from head colour. Also from a maternal aspect neither NZ suffolk or Texel will offer decent lambing %.

Not convinced feels like when it's finished we ll be told NZ genetics are better for providing more live lambs with marginal carcass growth/kill out rate reduction. Then everyone will be saying NZ genetics are better while we ignore a large portion of our stock that might suit systems better such as Blackface, Cheviot, Lleyn, Belclare, charollais etc etc

Green farmer

lets be honest, one of the main areas their studying is the % of ewes that need assistance at lambing , so they choose two Irish pedigree breeds that can on occasions require c section's at lambing.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Cran wrote: »

Thats a fair point but it doesn't take a genius to say look at Suffolks now and Suffolks 20 years ago and say it's gone down a wrong route if you want ease of management. There is probably more in common between Charollais and NZ suffolk TBH than local suffolks aside from head colour. Also from a maternal aspect neither NZ suffolk or Texel will offer decent lambing %.

Not convinced feels like when it's finished we ll be told NZ genetics are better for providing more live lambs with marginal carcass growth/kill out rate reduction. Then everyone will be saying NZ genetics are better while we ignore a large portion of our stock that might suit systems better such as Blackface, Cheviot, Lleyn, Belclare, charollais etc etc

I wouldn't disagree with you there, I haven't gone near Suffolks in longer than that for that reason. One of my main reasons for going was to see them in the flesh and tbh I was impressed with them. Especially their heads which aren't massive yolks.

Also, half the national flock would be Suffolk crosses and a large proportion of what's left would be Belclare but, to get a comparison baseline, they have to use comparable breeds. I'm sure down the line there will be comparisons with other maternal breeds but there will have to be figures there for the NZ bloodlines v Irish ones before any comparison with the relatively small numbers of ewes from other breeds who don't have much in the way of figures available as yet.

Green farmer

Carrying on from what their doing in athenry, what's the story with ram seaman or full embyros ? Just say if you wanted to start your own flock of nz sheep , can you buy and implant embyros ? Is there a lot of paperwork or cost involved ? Is it cost prohibitive ? Out of curiosity really.

Ard_MC

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2017/Sheep-Open-Day_2017.pdf