This March, the Irish Texel Sheep Society, in association with the Irish Farmers Journal, launched its annual editorial competition for young sheep enthusiasts. This year’s competition was broken into categories for different age groups spread out over a few months.

We are now ready to announce the winner of the third age category, 15- to 17-year-olds, which again attracted a great response.

We are delighted to announce the section winner is 16-year-old Oisín Daly. This young sheep enthusiast from west Cork told many an interesting tale of how he uses the sheep as a break during lockdown.

He will receive a €250 voucher to spend at the Irish Texel premier sale in August and advances to the final against the winners of the remaining age categories.

Next category

The next age category is for those aged between 18 and 21, with the entry deadline of 23 July. Please send your articles with the same title to smurphy@farmersjournal.ie and info@irishtexel.com, including your name, address, date of birth and contact number with your entry. The winner will be announced in the following week’s paper, along with the published article.

Looking after sheep during self-isolation and its benefits

By Oisín Daly

My name is Oisín Daly and I’m a 16-year-old sheep farmer from Caheragh in west Cork. There are many benefits from looking after sheep no matter what the situation but during lockdown it’s especially important. Being able to walk outside in fresh open air and just worry about your livestock and not everything going on around us is both good for your physical and mental health. When we were told on 12 March that we had no more school I was absolutely delighted as we were just in the middle of lambing, where we lamb Belclares, Suffolks, Charollais and Texels – the lockdown couldn’t have come at a better time. We find there are many advantages to using Texel rams such as their hardiness – Texel crosses especially are known to handle harsh weather (which we get lots of). Texel lambs have a great will to live and are very lively after they are born, compared to some breeds which can be very dead in themselves and lying down after they’re born. Texel lambs are very good for getting straight up and starting suckling.

Most people have been finding isolation tough with boredom but when you’re on a farm there’s never a shy moment and you can always find some job to do such as fencing, spraying, looking after the lambs and taking pictures (the brother and sister say I’m very bad for that).

When the country went into lockdown the people of Ireland and across the world weren’t long realising who the real heroes were. Many businesses shut their doors and had to stop working, but we were still farming. We were still out morning and evening producing top-quality food to put on people’s tables.

The majority of lambs on our farm go to the factory from around the time they are 14 weeks old. My uncle lambs all Texel crosses and was sending lambs to the factory from 12 weeks old at 40kg.

Having a Texel ram on a commercial farm will make you a few more pound as their lambs are usually fit to slaughter quicker than other breeds and make the early higher price at the factory.

The Texel lambs are very clean lambs and have a good immunity to worms so there is that slimmer chance of the lamb getting maggots.

Hardy breed

Overall, Texels are a hardy breed and have a brilliant carcase – it’s very bulky and lean.

The ewes have an excellent mothering ability. These are many advantages of the Texel breed.

When going out farming during lockdown, social distancing becomes the least of your worries as your only company is usually the sheep and the dog. We lamb our sheep inside so after lambing was done we had time to get the sheds cleaned out and dung taken out to the fields.

We got lots of fields wired and broke up the bigger fields so that the sheep will have shorter periods in the fresh grass to maximise the lambs’ chances of thriving and to keep the ewes with plenty of milk. I have just started up my own small pedigree flock this year and was excited about going to shows for the first time. It was a bit disappointing when they were all cancelled.

If I win this amazing prize I hope to buy a pedigree ewe that I can show next year and would also buy a good pedigree ram to use on both my pedigrees and commercials. I think winning this prize would also be a very good valid reason for dad to let me go to Blessington this year.