A survey of management practices and flock performance and their association with flock size and ewe breed type on Irish sheep farms

Abstract

SUMMARYA detailed survey was undertaken to assess the rate of production and current management practices on Irish sheep farms and quantify their associations with flock size and ewe breed type. A total of 39 questions relating to the farm production system and farm management practices were devised, including: producer age, location, farm size, livestock numbers and type, in addition to flock management data such as flock breeding policy, lamb finishing strategy, flock health, lambing date, winter housing and feeding practices. A total of 717 sheep producers were surveyed across 45 different discussion groups. The surveyed respondents were sub-divided into four groups depending on flock size (very small, small, medium and large) and into three groups depending on ewe breed type (maternal, terminal and hill). The average survey respondent was 48 years old, with a flock size of 150 breeding ewes on a farm size of 58 ha. The average stocking rates were 6·55 and 3·14 ewes/ha and weaning rates were 1·44 and 1·02 lambs per ewe joined to the ram for the lowland and hill flocks, respectively. Relative to very small flocks (<62 ewes), larger flocks (>190 ewes) had higher stocking rates (6·98v.5·66 ewes/ha) and ewe to ram ratios (40v.30), and tended to lamb later in the year. The rate of technology adoption such as faecal egg sampling and pregnancy scanning was greater on larger flocks compared with smaller flocks. Flocks with maternal ewe breeds had higher scanning and weaning rates, and drafted a greater proportion of lambs off grass compared with flocks with terminal and hill ewe breeds. Flocks with maternal and terminal ewe breed types were more likely to winter house ewes, lamb indoors, test silage quality and have a handling unit compared with flocks with hill-type ewe breeds. Results from the present study provide a bank of knowledge on current Irish sheep industry performance and show that flock size and ewe breed type have a significant impact on key flock performance variables.

Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population1

“…The five major performance recording breeds in Ireland (Belclare, Charollais, Suffolk, Texel, and Vendeen) were the most widely represented within each dataset. Lambs were also subsequently grouped into five broad breed classifications based on their dominant breed composition: terminal, dual purpose, hill, maternal, and other breed class as defined by Bohan et al (2017) . Heterosis and recombination loss coefficients were calculated for each lamb and dam as and respectively, where sire i and dam i are the proportion of breed i in the sire and dam, respectively.…”

Breeding Practices and Trait Preferences of Sheep Farmers in a Sub-Humid Tropical Environment

“…The average flock size obtained in this study is higher than the 8.2±2.05 and 11.3±1.27 mean values reported by Edea et al (2012). However, it is lower than the range of 1-300 sheep reported by Marshall et al (2016), 150 breeding ewes by Bohan et al (2017), 23.0-31.6 sheep submitted by Getachew et al (2010) and an average of 22.6 sheep given by Amare et al (2018). The differences might be attributed to genetic factors, production objectives, available resources, climate and ecology, and management practices.…”

Genetic and economic benefits of foreign sire contributions to a domestic sheep industry; including an Ireland-New Zealand case study

“…In addition, the breeds of New Zealand sheep imported as part of [ 12 ] and used to calculate the regression coefficient between the and in the current study comprised terminal type breeds (i.e. Suffolk and Texel), which are similar to the ewe breed type in Ireland [ 25 ]. The importation of more maternal based breeds with a greater genetic trend could have been considered for the FOR scenarios but this would not reflect the breeding practices that are currently operated in Ireland and would therefore have required a dramatic change in the Irish breeding structure.…”