User:GW-Xion

Introduction As apart of my Agricultural Science project I visited a Sheep farm. It is run by my father's friend, John Joe Mc Laughlin and is located at Beltra, Dough Island. I chose this farm because it is run very well and was recommended by my father.

Aim I aim to find out what must be done in order to successfully run a sheep farm and the precautions that need to be taken into account when thinking of disease control, breeding and grassland.

Scale of Enterprise He has around 350 ewes, they are Suffolk and Texel crosses which he says are good because they are easy to lamb and easy to finish.

(Pic of two sheep, show Suffolk and Texel)

Size of farm He owns aprox 210 acres but shares aprox 1,000 acres of common acreage in the hills of Dough Island. He does not house his sheep so he circulates them around his land, and common acreage.

Soil The type of soil on his land is sandy clay. If not for some hills his land would be almost entirely south facing which is very good for the grass as it wont get water logged easily, as well as heating up quickly when the weather improves in spring.

Grass He uses two types of grass, one which is long growing for grazing which has a high clover content, this helps give the sheep get extra protein. The rest is silage grass, which he uses to make pit silage as, he says, it wont give pregnant ewes a shock to their system when changing from food types and thus prevent abortion.

The grass he uses for silage is used as pit silage near his home, no more than 50-60 meters away. He uses a silage cutter on the back of his Tractor to cut his pit silage for feeding his sheep. He has three trailers to keep silage in circulation easily. He uses one to hold silage for the next trip, and keeps the other two in circulation by filling the first, loading the pit silage into the second, then bringing back the third and then sending out the second, then filling the third etc. This ensures easy management of feeding for the Sheep. He says when he checked his silage's DMD awhile ago it was fairly high above average.

(Picture of silage and trailers)

Farmyard His house is on the outskirts of his sheep farm, the sheep fields are still only a short walk away or a very short drive. He has a very large shed right beside his home to store supplies, as well as the silage pit, right outside the shed.

(Pic of inside shed, if flash work)

Pregnancy He does not us sponging on his sheep, but he does flush them so they put on more weight before mating and having a lamb. This will mean that the Ewe will come into heat more regularly, have a greater chance of twins and there will be less premature births of lambs. After mating he will then 'steam-up' the Ewes awhile before pregnancy to reduce the chance of disease and make the lambs stronger and weigh more.

His lambs weigh 3-6 pounds when they are born. He does not dip his lambs naval in iodine as he finds it unnecessary. These lambs are weaned at around August to September; he does this to stop the Ewes producing milk. Instead of a fostering crate he sticks fence poles in the ground and ties the Ewe to them. He says that does the job. Although he does dock his lamb’s tails he does not castrate his males. He has little problems at birth, but if he does he just sends the Ewe to be slaughtered.

Disease Control There are a few ways in which he prevents disease, such as dosing his lambs and by having a closed flock. The diseases he would look out for would be Scrapey, Scab and Foot rot. If he finds any sheep infected he has them slaughtered so no other sheep will become infected from that sheep.