General sheep thread

stantheman1979 · 23-04-2018 02:01PM

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 · 23-04-2018 09:53PM

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

charolais0153 · 23-04-2018 11:03PM

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 · 23-04-2018 11:07PM

What age are them lambs?

Still feeding ewes here but cutting it back now.

charolais0153 · 23-04-2018 11:14PM

MeTheMan wrote: »

What age are them lambs?

Still feeding ewes here but cutting it back now.

Feb 25th on i suppose

Lambman · 24-04-2018 11:02AM

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 · 24-04-2018 09:48PM

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 · 24-04-2018 10:22PM

DJ98 wrote: »

Whats the breeding behind those lambs?

Suffolk and texel ewes. Suffolk texel and charollais rams.

DJ98 · 25-04-2018 12:21PM

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 · 25-04-2018 04:55PM

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 · 26-04-2018 01:35PM

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 · 26-04-2018 02:48PM

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 · 26-04-2018 03:01PM

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 · 26-04-2018 03:16PM

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 · 26-04-2018 03:22PM

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 · 26-04-2018 05:01PM

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 · 26-04-2018 05:15PM

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 · 26-04-2018 10:57PM

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 · 26-04-2018 11:04PM

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 · 27-04-2018 02:05AM

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 · 27-04-2018 10:37AM

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 · 27-04-2018 10:55AM

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 · 27-04-2018 12:19PM

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 · 27-04-2018 07:38PM

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 · 27-04-2018 07:45PM

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 · 27-04-2018 08:50PM

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 · 27-04-2018 09:40PM

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 · 27-04-2018 10:04PM

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 · 27-04-2018 10:10PM

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 · 27-04-2018 10:53PM

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.

General sheep thread

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