Heavy soils better suited to sheep production

over to cattle and 50pc to sheep. On Seán’s farm, 145 mature ewes and 35 ewe lambs went to the ram in 2013. Rams were introduced to the mature ewes on October 20 and to ewe lambs on October 30.

Lambing takes place outdoors on the Conway holding and in order to compact the lambing spread, all rams were removed from the ewes and ewe lambs on November 21.

The ram effect was used prior to mating, with Charollais used as a terminal sire and Belclare rams to breed replacements.

Ewes are mainly Suffolk and Texel crosses and scanned at 1.80 lambs per ewe, with the ewe lambs, all Belclare crosses, scanning at 1.43 lambs per ewe put to the ram. Seán was extremely happy with the over- all flock conception rate of 98.4pc. Details of scanning results are in Table 1 and 2.

Seán is a founder member of t he Sligo/Leitrim Lamb Producer Group, who are currently sending lambs to Irish Country Meats in Navan.

He is a member of a STAP sheep discussion group in Sligo and over the past two years has participated in a flock health study carried out by Teagasc and the Veterinary School of Medicine UCD.

Seán has completed a profit monitor for the last four years and has a plan in place to improve profitability.

The plan involves increasing stocking rate and ewe numbers to 300, improving output per ewe by using Belclare rams to breed his replacements and maximising lamb performance from grazed grass. Seán currently finishes 95pc of lambs off grass with no concentrate input.

Finally, he is foc used on producing quality lambs that f al l within t he c orrec t specification to maximise lamb price and ultimately output per ewe and per hectare.