John O’Connell is a sheep farmer from Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. He is a participant in the Teagasc Better Farm Sheep Programme.
He was speaking last Tuesday, January 28, at the Teagasc National Sheep Conference, in the Great Southern Hotel, Killarney, Co. Kerry.
John gave us an insight into his decision to stop milking cows in the 1990s and eventually move away from suckler cows in 2012 and go down the route of sheep farming.
Due to the fact that the land is quite heavy in Co. Leitrim, he was constantly battling to maintain the land and keep the rushes away.
Speaking to AgriLand, John said: “The dairy and suckler cows were ruining the land and that led to the winter housing periods becoming longer; in turn, reducing the profitability of the enterprise.”
In 2013, he joined the Teagasc Better Farm Sheep Programme and he hasn’t looked back since.
His presentation on the night focused on four key issues that are listed (below).
These include:
- Breeding policy;
- Flock health;
- Soil fertility;
- Grassland management.
System
John runs a flock of 220 Suffolk cross Belclare ewes alongside contract rearing 80 dairy heifers.
The farm is split into two blocks – comprising 34ha. A lot of money was spent over the past few years on fencing the land.
He added: “The sheep and the young heifers work perfectly together. I need a light type of animal to graze the ground.
“The heifers are gone off the farm at 450kg which is a lot lighter than a mature suckler cow. Same with the sheep, they are a small and light animal which suit the land here perfectly.
“All the lambs are slaughtered, except for any ewe lambs that are bred from mature ewes that have been earmarked for breeding.”
Breeding policy
In order to boost the profitability of the farm, John introduced Belclare genetics into his flock as well as looking at increasing ewe body condition score (BCS) at mating.
John added: “I introduced a Belclare ram and began crossing it back to my Suffolk type ewes and crossing a Suffolk ram back on my white-faced ewes.
I began to record a lot more as well, with the aim of improving the BCS of my flock at mating. Furthermore, any problem ewes or thin ewes were grazed with the ewe lambs and if they didn’t respond and improve condition they were culled.
“In 2013, at mating, 15% of my ewes had a BCS of less than 3.0. Fast forward to now, only 6% were less than 3.0, with a target BCS of 3.5 at mating and no ewes less than 3.0.”
John believes keeping a diary and recording information on individual ewes has increased the performance of his flock – as the problem ewes are not bred again like they would have been in previous years.
Over 100 more lambs were reared last year compared to 2014, with John putting this down to improved ewe body condition.
Flock health
Flock health is something John takes very seriously.
He has encountered big problems with his flock in terms of enzootic abortion and contagious ovine digital dermatitis (CODD) that were introduced to his flock from purchased stock in the mart.
John runs a closed flock, with only breeding rams purchased.
Since getting these problems under control, John has implemented a strict bio-security protocol.
On arrival, purchased stock are:
- Housed for 48 hours in the slatted house;
- Dosed with a wormer product to kill any potential resistant worms;
- Dosed with a closantel-based flukicide to kill any fluke in the animals;
- Run through a foot bath to ensure any lameness issues don’t spread to the rest of the flock.
John also collects dung samples to determine if his flock are resistant to any doses. The results showed that his flock have built up a resistance to white drenches.
However, the results showed low levels of resistance to yellow and clear drenches.
All ewes and ewe lambs are vaccinated against toxoplasmosis, with all breeding females on the Heptavac-P programme to prevent against clostridial diseases before lambing.
Importance of colostrum
In previous years, if ewes had two or more lambs and were short on colostrum John would use substitute colostrum without mixing it with the ewe’s colostrum.
This, in turn, meant the lambs were not receiving enough antibodies to protect themselves.
Therefore, to combat against this problem, John milked what colostrum the ewe had and divided it up evenly and fed it to her lambs and topped it up with substitute colostrum.
John explained: “A newborn lamb weighing 5kg requires between 250ml and 300ml of colostrum in the first hour of life.”
He added: “When it comes to the ration fed, it has to contain sufficient amounts of good-quality protein in the form of soya bean meal.
“This – along with stricter culling – has reduced the number of ewes with insufficient colostrum at lambing.”
Grassland management
Improving grassland management on the farm has saved John a lot of money when it comes to buying concentrates.
In 2014, the entire farm was soil sampled and, from the results, a fertiliser plan was drawn up to address any soil nutrient deficiencies and also to maximise growth.
Grass measuring is one of the most important jobs that John carries out on a weekly basis. In 2019, he grew 12.7t of DM/ha, with 10.1t of this grazed and a further 2.5t cut for silage – on average.
John said: “It took me a while to see the benefit of it [grass measuring]. However, after seeing the information I can get from it, it allows me to make good management decisions.
“I also have a drainage and reseeding programme which I implement across the farm.”
Cutting back on concentrates
Since focusing on growing more grass, this has resulted in John being able to cut back on the amount of concentrates he feeds his sheep.
John explained: “I am not feeding meal to the mature ewes and their lambs post-lambing – which is a big change from previous years.
“I try to finish as many lambs off grass, but normally in September the land gets very wet and I have to house some of them.
Once ram lambs weigh 40kg they are housed and finished at between 45kg and 47kg liveweight on concentrates.
“However, these lambs may be only housed for two weeks and at most a month so it isn’t a long finishing period.”
Financial performance
Since changing systems, John has increased the financial returns on his farm.
Outlined (below) is the financial performance of the sheep flock between 2014 and 2019.
John added: “I have managed to increase my gross margin per ha from €351/ha in 2014 up to €1,244/ha in 2019.
“However, this didn’t happen overnight; it took years of changes and doing the small things right to get to where I am today.
It is important that the system suits the land you have and in my case it took a while for me to figure that out.
“Going forward, I hope I can keep my gross margin for the sheep enterprise around €1,000/ha,” John concluded.