The Co Galway-based Cormac Sheep lamb carousel has received a lot of publicity since its debut presentation on RTE’s The Late Late Show three weeks ago.

The aim of the carousel is simple – to keep lambs steady for routine management practices such as vaccinations, tagging, tail docking and castration, in order to make life easier for the farmer. The publicity wasn’t all positive, however, with animal rights groups outraged by the idea of partially immobilising a lamb.

The outrage came from people with little or no hands-on experience of livestock farming, not to mention lambing ewes and the management tasks that are carried out afterwards. TJ Gormley, the inventor of the carousel, said his office was inundated with nasty emails from viewers who felt the carousel was cruel and keyboard warriors on social media did not hold back their views on the setup either.

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“One group even tried to find a sanctuary to ‘rescue’ the lambs, as if I would ever treat an animal poorly – it was unbelievable,” said TJ. The negative sentiment coming from this minority is more a sign of some people’s inexperience when it comes to good livestock husbandry. It may also highlight the need for the agricultural industry to find innovative ways of educating the general public about everyday harmless farming tasks.

Thankfully, an online poll carried out by the Irish Farmers Journal showed that 98% of the 390 voters felt that the machine is harmless and will help farmers.

Big demand

As the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. This was certainly the case for TJ’s invention and since the programme aired the carousel has got over 50,000 hits on YouTube. Despite the social media backlash, demand for the carousel has been very strong and there is now a waiting list.

Sheep farmers watching The Late Late Show on the night could see the benefits of the device. TJ says it prevents the lambs moving and kicking when the farmer is tagging, tail docking, castrating and injecting them. He says the carousel holds three lambs at a time and helps to speed up newborn lamb management.

“In a typical father and child arrangement, the child can catch the lambs and place them in the carousel while the father carries out the tagging, etc. It also works well for older farmers working by themselves as they have far more control of the lamb at working height,” he explained.

There are two types of carousel available – one carousel has an adjustable clamp and TJ says it is at an ideal working height when it is attached to an ordinary sheep gate/hurdle. The other type is on a mobile tripod that is 3ft off the ground for easy mobility around the lambing shed. Both have a plastic body and a stainless steel frame that holds the lamb in the best position for work to be carried out.

The carousel can hold a lamb from one day to three weeks old and the stainless steel frame is adjustable to suit the size of the lamb.

A large tray underneath the carousel caters for syringes, castration rings, tags, taggers, markers and anything else that may be required for managing young lambs.

The carousel is retailing at €195 excluding VAT. A new consignment of carousels is expected this weekend which will help meet the current strong demand, according to TJ.