The results of the 2025 Department of Agriculture annual sheep and goat census have surprised farmers and industry stakeholders, with the breeding ewe flock increasing by 26,888 head, or 1.1% compared to December 2024. There were predictions that the breeding ewe flock would have reduced by upwards of 100,000 to 200,000 head, given last year’s sheep kill fell by over 440,000 head.

Conditions for lambing in spring 2024 were also ideal, so one would imagine that the number of lambs produced would, if anything, have been higher. At 1.11m head, there was an increase of 72,639, or 6.9%, more sheep in the other sheep category on farms on 1 December 2025, as detailed in Table 1, with this figure including lambs, cull ewes, etc. This is the first time since 2021 that the other sheep category recorded an increase.

The number of sheep imported from Northern Ireland also reduced by 105,542 head to 262,954, while the number of ewes and rams slaughtered fell by 69,257 head. When these three figures are added together it could potentially account for over 247,000 head of the reduction, meaning there is still an unexplained drop of over 200,000 head.

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Some industry stakeholders point to potentially lower output stemming from an increased number of farmers converting to organic farming, while others point to a higher number of ewes being kept and run dry to satisfy scheme requirements. For now, the scale of the reduction in sheep throughput of over 440,000 head in 2025 and over 800,000 head in 2024 and 2025, combined, is unexplained.

County trends

Figure 2 gives a visual representation of breeding ewe numbers by county and the percentage change to the previous 12 months. Donegal and Mayo, the counties with the highest number of breeding ewes, recorded the greatest increases of 5,072 and 5,451 head, respectively.

Leitrim and Roscommon also saw breeding ewe numbers rise by over 4,000 head, with both counties recording the third and fourth highest percentage increases of 4.7% and 4.1%. Kildare recorded the highest percentage increase of 6.1% (3,792 ewes) with Laois up 5.2%, but with a much lower numerical increase of 1,345 head.

Pressure remains on ewe numbers in dairy strongholds with numbers falling marginally in Cork, Tipperary, Wexford and Kilkenny, while Carlow recorded the greatest reduction of 2,150 head, or a 3.4% drop.

Other sheep

As can be expected Donegal recorded the highest number of sheep in the ‘other sheep’ category, with numbers increasing by 8,103 head. Galway had the second highest number of sheep in this category, with numbers increasing by twice that of Donegal and Mayo and rising by 16,034 head. There were also sizeable increases in Roscommon, Meath, Kerry, Sligo, Cavan and Longford.

Breed type

Table 2 give a breakdown of sheep numbers by lowland/lowland-cross and mountain/mountain-cross. The counties with the highest number of sheep all have one thing in common – significant areas of hill and mountain land sustaining significant flocks of ewes categorised as mountain or mountain-cross. These sheep account for 45% of the national population of sheep.

Other changes

The average flock size listed by the Department of Agriculture is 108 sheep. This ranges from a top of 172 in Wicklow to a low of 47 in Clare. The average flock size in Clare is almost half the next lowest of 88 sheep in Donegal. Some 69% of flocks (23,496) kept fewer than the national average flock number.

The number of breeding rams on farms reduced by 1,497, or 1.8%, to 80,622 head. This was expected in line with a predicted fall in breeding ewe numbers which did not materialise.

The number of registered holdings keeping sheep increased by 362 farms to 34,167 with the Department reporting that 1,482 sheep flocks were either newly approved or reactivated to keep sheep in 2025.