Roscommon farmer Seamus Dolan gave farmers a snapshot of his sheep enterprise when he hosted his local Knowledge Transfer sheep meeting last week. Seamus, who has a 250-ewe mid-season lambing flock, is part of a family that has a long tradition in sheep farming.

His parents William and Kathleen have always run ewes on the family farm and still possesses a small number of Galway ewes, which were the breed of choice in the flock’s early years.

Their enthusiasm for farming has been passed down, with Seamus’s brothers Padraig, Frank and Liam and sisters Catherine and Carol also involved in sheep farming and related jobs.

Having started farming in his own right is recent years, Seamus’s flock is relatively young and has been in an expansion phase, with a high percentage of ewe lambs retained for breeding. The breeding mix is progressing down a route of a criss-cross breeding of Belclare with Suffolk. Texel rams are also used as a terminal sire. The young flock has scanned around 1.8 lambs in recent years and Seamus is hoping to achieve closer to an average scanning rate of two lambs per ewe when the flock has a more balanced age pattern.

Recent inclement weather presented challenges in getting ewes and lambs outdoors last week, but this week’s weather is relieving pressure.

The aim on the farm is to run as simplified a system as possible, with a number of practices helping reduce labour input.

There is a focus on saving some top-quality leafy hay for feeding in the final weeks of pregnancy and during the lambing period each year. The Dolan’s find hay helps keep the penning drier and is also easier to handle.

Some tillage is also sown on the farm and a number of square bales of straw are stored in a loft adjacent to the sheep shed which makes bedding easier.

The grain also makes up the staple of the concentrate mix diet, with the late pregnancy concentrate mix comprising about 40% barley, 40% oats, 18% soya bean and 2% mineral and vitamins. This is fed to twin-bearing ewes at about a rate of 0.4kg morning and evening with the Dolans always finding oats to be a good feed to put good vigour into ewes and lambs. Depending on the weather, supplementation is continued for the first couple of weeks of lactation.

Fields are closed strategically from October onwards with winter growth in 2016/2017 described as being very favourable. Seamus says that the challenge at the moment is utilisation rather than grass supply and for this reason supplementation of ewes at grass will be reviewed on an ongoing basis and continued where required.

Twice-yearly shearing

Another aspect on the farm that differs slightly to the majority is twice-yearly shearing. This is used as a management tool in spring and September, with shearing late in the year carried out to allow more ewes to be housed in the same area.

This also gives the benefits in the birth of heavier lambs. Shearing earlier in the year serves as an aid in flystrike control and Seamus says it is made easier by many of the family being keen shearers.