Tullamore Farm update: over 50% of ewes served in first week

Rams were joined with ewes on Tullamore Farm on 17 October with the aim of lambing hitting peak activity from St Patrick’s Day onwards. It looked at the outset that breeding was a bit slower to take off, but after a couple of days mating activity increased and by the end of the first week over 50% of ewes were served.

Single sire mating is being practiced as we have been focused in recent years on trying to match ram and ewe data to offspring without venturing down the route of genotyping lambs.

We are conscious that this approach leaves us more open to ram infertility issues so we take steps to minimise this by fertility testing rams pre-breeding, switching rams between groups, and raddling to identify issues swiftly. The latter task also allows us to implement a more accurate feeding programme in late pregnancy.

Ewe lambs

Ewe lambs will be joined to rams at the end of the first cycle of mating in the ewes and will be given shy of four weeks with rams. We are pretty pleased with the weight and condition of lambs.

The average weight of the batch of 70 lambs is about 50kg, with Easycare ewe lambs weighing around the 45kg mark at their last weighing and homebred Texel x Mule and Suffolk x Mule ewe lambs weighing upwards of 54kg on average.

Easycare lambs will be mated with an Easycare ram and homebred ewe lambs will be mated with a Charollais ram. Easycare lambs will receive some preferential treatment post-mating to boost performance ahead of housing and will likely receive a low level of concentrate supplementation.

Finishing lambs

The 15 remaining ewe lambs for finishing will start to receive concentrate supplementation this week at a rate of 0.3kg per head, rising quickly to 0.5kg per head daily. Lambs were weighing around 43.5kg at their last weighing, with a range in liveweights from 37kg to 47kg.

The average lamb price recorded to date is just over €153 per head. This compares to about €140 per head in 2023, while the average carcase weight of 20.79kg is about 0.3kg lower.

More in-depth analysis will be completed when all lambs are drafted but it looks like concentrate costs per lamb will come in at less than €5 per head with lambs sold off the farm nearly a month earlier.

A few cull ewes were also drafted out for slaughter at the last breeding check pre-mating. These were ewes which were repeat offenders with regard to lameness. One ram also had a touch of scald last week and was initially footbathed, followed by individual treatment with a foot spray and he quickly recovered.

Counts

Faecal egg counts (FEC) continue to be collected fortnightly as part of the Teagasc Techcare project. Finishing lambs recorded a FEC of 45 eggs per gram (epg) and ewe lambs 195epg. Counts will continue to determine the need to dose.

The 37 bull weanlings, recently housed full-time, were weighed this week. They averaged 330kg, equating to a daily liveweight gain from birth of 1.25kg.

Bulls are roughly 20kg lighter than the 2023 batch of bulls at the same time last year.

We are happy enough with this, considering this year’s delayed turnout, lower grass growth during the summer and a higher percentage of April-born calves in the mix. Issues with an infertile stock bull in 2023 also meant breeding ran on for three weeks longer than planned.

The 20 February-born bulls averaged 375kg liveweight, recording an average gain since birth of 1.32kg per day. This strengthens the decision taken to cull over 20 April calvers and retain all replacement heifers for this year.

Budgeting

The next step is completing a finishing budget to decide whether selling bulls live would be a better prospect than finishing, given the strong live trade and appetite shown by specialist finishers and exporters. Options will be discussed by the management team in the coming weeks and shared with readers.

Heifer calves

The remaining batch of heifer calves (with the exception of April calvers weaned earlier) were weaned last week and remain at grass. Anti-suckle paddles were put on the noses of heifer calves for a period, thereby preventing suckling and gradually breaking the bond, minimising stress.

There is a week’s grass ahead of cows with heifer calves and at this stage cows will be housed and heifer calves will remain outdoors for a few weeks, weather permitting. They are receiving 2kg concentrate supplementation daily in troughs.

Photosensitisation

An in-calf heifer was diagnosed this week with photosensitisation by the farm’s vet Donal Lynch. The heifer presented with skin becoming dry and flaky on both her nose and udder, and she just seemed off form.

Photosensitisation is commonly associated with liver damage, leaving the animal’s skin sensitive to light. This could also be caused by eating noxious weeds or, given the time of year, damage from liver fluke.

As no poisonous weeds are seen to be present in the sward, the heifer was treated for liver fluke, housed away from direct sunlight and put on a course of antibiotics and painkillers.

The farm has no previous history with liver fluke but the livers of slaughtered cull cows will be checked in the coming weeks for fluke damage.