My farming week: Ronan and Noel Lally, Ballycumber, Co Offaly

We farm: “On two separate holdings near Clara and Ballycumber. We have 25ac and keep 30 Zwartbles ewes. Our first ewes were purchased back in 2008 from a farmer in Carlisle, England. Our rams come from Scotland.”

Noel’s calling: “As a child I adored rearing and caring for sheep. I entered the working world off-farm but I always kept the love for sheep with me. The opportunity to buy a few acres presented itself and I was more than delighted to return to a previous shepherding self.

Zwartbles: “We first discovered the breed at the Ploughing Championships in Tullamore over 10 years ago. Immediately, we thought they were such striking animals, with unique deep black wool. We are delighted with their performance, they have a naturally wide pelvis which gives great ease of lambing.”

Great mothers: “The breed has strong maternal instincts. They take to their lambs very quickly and we’ve also been successful with adopting orphaned lambs on them. The lambs are lucky because the mothers are very milky. Docile by nature is another plus point; the sheep are very friendly and will approach you in an open field.”

Exports: “We exported our sheep to Germany for the first time on Monday with Zwartbles Éire pedigree society. A buyer was very interested in our flock and requested to test blood samples for a full genotyping. We have also been exporting to farmers in Northern Ireland for the last four years.”

Genotyping: “The flock has been genotyped to ensure the sheep we export are genotype 1 for the terminal brain disease scrapie. Animals that are genotype 1 are resistant to the disease, while genotype 5 sheep are hypersensitive to it. Scrapie is similar to BSE, as it’s caused by a misfolded protein and affects the coordination regions of the brain.”

Breed appreciation: “We named our Zwartble flock Black Magic because they are absolutely magic sheep. They are great mothers, easy lambing, and savage hardy.”