October 2017

Since the last update it has been one of the busiest times ever on the farm, I will try give all the updates.

The Charollais premier sale was held at the end of July in Tullow and we had an exceptional day. We came 5th and 7th in the ewe lamb class, first ever rosettes for the flock at the premier, and considering my dislike of showing it was nice to pick them up. It got even better when the lambs hit the ring making 760 and 560 the 2nd highest female price on the day only behind the sale supreme champion, the other lamb was third highest ewe lamb price. Three lambs were sold on the day for 660, 560 and 520 two of which went to pedigree breeders, while not our best ram prices the consistency and fact we retained our best lamb this year we were delighted. Two more ewe lambs and three ewes were sold off the back of the quality of stock we brought to premier, all in an excellent day for the flock.

The Tullow show was held in August and we went with a full fleet, winning 3 classes and overall supreme champion with our homebred ram lamb Kilconnor Choo Choo. It was brilliant to win our local show for the first time after a couple of reserve positions and that it was with Choo Choo the last lamb by Zanardi made it even more special. Choo Choo is currently with sheep Ireland for use in the CPT flocks and first news we have is that he is extremely fertile and active, really looking forward to his lambs next year.

Also in the pedigree flock we attended the Builth Wells main sale with eye to buy a new ram. The Wedderburn champion pen of lambs really caught my eye from the start and were delighted to buy lot 4565 a son of Boyo Royal Ascot out the dam of Wedderburn Pelus the stock ram in Crogham, Lowerye and Rainbow flocks in the UK. Another lamb from the pen also caught my eye Wedderburn Savill and were under bidders at £2,300, while disappointed to miss out we really didn't need two rams and are delighted with our purchase. The raced is on now for a name for the new ram and pictures are up in the gallery.

In the commercial flock we are just getting ready for mating and waiting on a 3rd Logie ram from Ingrams in Scotland. We recently were in the farmers journal (link on front page) and we contacted by numerous people of the back of it inquiring about Logie ewe lambs, 40 were sold and some new customers created for the flock. We also bought 40 mules at the Mayo mule sale in August and 20 Lleyn hoggets privately so all go on the flock expansion.

We still have a couple rams left if anyone looking for one.

Joe

June 2017

Since the last update it has been a busy time on the farm with lambs thriving and great grass growth after a very poor start. Rams sales have started with two rams sold and another customer due this week to look at rams for this season. We have also cut 15 acres of haylage, sown 12 acres of Redstart and reseeded 12 acres of grass since the last update. 23 acres of turnips are due to go in by the end of July to complete the winter feed, aim of all this work is reduce the concentrate levels feed to minimal levels for the flock.

In the commercial flock expansion continues and the batch of Logie and Lleyn lambs look exceptional this year, the gamble on a new expensive Lleyn ram and the two Logies brought in from Scotland seems to have work. We have actually had three inquiries this week wondering if any Logie lambs for sale, and we will revisit this in August but at the moment believe there will be ewe lambs for sale at that point. If anyone is interested in some grass feed maternal ewe lambs please contact me and we will endeavour to provide you with requirements.

Commercial lambs are due to be weaned over the next few weeks in different batches, with any weather lambs over 35 kilos will go straight on to 12 acres of Redstart sown in mid-May. The first bunch are due in tomorrow as we write this, and looking at them in the field there seems to be lambs fit for slaughter. This would be exceptional growth as the first lambs were born first week in April and it’s still only June. The ewe lambs will go out on after grass until end August when we will bring them in and decide on the ones to keep, ones for sale and ones that don’t make the grade and can go on the Redstart at that stage.

In a first for the flock this year we are going to attempt register a Lleyn hogget ram. The Lleyn society for ram registration they have to pass an inspection, so on the 8th July we will be bringing this fella to Tullamore mart for inspection. We don’t really know what to expect and even though we believe he is a lovely sheep the type we want, we are unsure if he fits the Lleyn society breed standard. If he passes the inspection he will be kept to run with unrelated Lleyn ewes and if not it will be education on Lleyn breeding well earned.

In the pedigree flock Charollais flock the January flock are exceeding all expectations this year. I believe the reason for this is twofold, the breeding policy implemented over the past eight years is starting to click across generations of stock, secondly it has helped that Rockvilla Oscar has been used heavily this year and he is breeding exceptionally well. We completed Muscle& Fat scanning last week with the best ram lamb returning a massive 46.6mm Muscle with a low 0.5mm Fat weighing 85kgs this lamb H1-17-016 is entered in the premier sale. The best ewe lamb was H1-17-010 weighing 75kgs returning 40mm muscle with 0.4mm Fat, this lamb is also entered in the premier sale that we will get to later.

The best ram lamb this all year consistently doing 450 grams daily weight gain between seven weighs is H1-17-016. This ram also has muscle scan of 46.6mm with .5mm Fat, after watching him all year and reviewing rams on offer at the All Ireland this year we have decided to retain this lamb as our new stock ram. Twelve ewes have been picked to run with him for January 2018 lambing, all we need now is a name that can do him justice.

The premier sale is on the 29th July in Tullow this year, and today I sent the letter with our finalised entries. This year due to an excellent batch of April ewe hogget’s from 2016 and super bunch of ewe lambs we have decided to use our allocation of two females for the first time at the premier. I was once told if bringing females to the premier they need to be the best lambs in the flock and something exceptional, for that reason we have entered two outstanding ewe lambs with exceptional figures for the sale. The details can be found on a link on the homepage, but as an example the first ewe lamb is the heaviest ewe lamb this year, highest muscle scan for ewe lambs and in the Top 3% of the breed for terminal index. We are also bringing four ram lambs three of which are 5 Star for terminal index with one in the top 2% of the breed. Two of the lambs are by Kilronan Zanardi and these are the very two last lambs by this exceptional ram.

Look forward to seeing everyone at the premier this year or at the house for a ram. If you are looking for a non-pampered lamb or grass reared hogget please contact us and we will discuss you specific needs.

Joe

April 2017

April has turned out to be lovely month weather wise and after a wet start to lambing there are only 40 ewes left to lamb now at Kilconnor. Lambing has gone extremely well and our all our new rams seem to have produced impressive offspring. The Logie rams have exceeded our expectations producing really stylish strong lambs, easy lambed and up on their feet very quickly. First impressions are they are providing the type of lambs we wanted from our mules and as they grow hopefully they will continue to exceed our expectations. The new Lleyn ram has made us very excited his lambs are really smart stylish lambs with great length, we have keep 15 of what we think are the best male lambs entire this year to see how they develop as the year goes on. The most excitement though has been around our new French Charollais ram Pinot, with only 3 January lambs by him all April lambing pedigrees were in lamb to him. The lambs are up really quick, fantastic length and full of muscle. All these lambs are now out at grass and will not receive any meal until the winter, really looking forward to seeing these thrive now over the rest of the spring and summer.

The January lambs were weaned this week and their weights taken for LambPlus recording, I think this is the best bunch of lambs ever on the farm at this stage of the year. Five ram lambs have done over 450gms a day since birth with another five around the 400gms a day since, these are great figures considering the lambs are outside since end of January, and first cut of LambPlus stars are excellent with most lambs 5or 4 star for at least one trait if not both. One exceptional ram lamb has done over 540gms DWG consistently since forty day weights were taken, as a twin he did 400gms up to forty days and 550gms to weaning weight which is exceptional gain and is also a double five star in top 3% for terminal index.

The hogget rams have wintered very well at the end of the farm and are currently on grass only since beginning of March, there are ten hogget rams for sale this year and the eight April born rams are really starting to mature now. These hogget rams will all be for sale from the house once shorn over the next couple of weeks, at the moment we hope to have just over twenty rams for sale this year with three of these are already booked by returning customers. Hopefully the lambs and hogget’s will continue to thrive through spring into summer and we can have a successful sales season.

In addition to the rams sales this year we will have a very limited number of females for sale from all breeds on the farm. If you are interested please contact me by phone, email or through the website.

Joe

March 2017

After a nice and dry winter the rain arrived full force in mid-February and as I write this in mid-March the rain continues to fall.

The pedigree January lambs have been out since the end of January and look to be doing extremely well in spite of the rain. Forty day weights were taken of the first batch 15th February, with the plan to weigh the repeats this week. First batch have done extremely well with a lamb by Zanardi doing 496gm/day, this lamb is a full brother to a cracking lamb sold at the 2015 premier sale. Twin lambs a ewe and ram by Oscar out of a ewe bought at the Deerpark dispersal as a ewe lamb have both done 426gms/day, both these lambs seem to continuously catch my eye when out in the field with the lambs. Other lambs to catch my eye is one of only two lambs on the ground by Pinot out of a seven year old Ballyhibben ewe, and also a lamb by Oscar out of a daughter of H1-11-002 has done 450gms/day is looking very well. Overall very impressed with the Oscar lambs this year, and he seems to have clicked very well with Zanardi and Drico daughters. I am hoping to keep one of my own top ram lambs this year to run with the pedigrees, logic being that they have proved themselves within the system used on the farm.

The April flock have now been scanned and are beginning to spring with just over two weeks to lambing starting. The April pedigrees are due to be brought inside this week if we can get a dry day; all these ewes are in lamb to Pinot and cannot wait to see the lambs on the ground with everything that’s happened with Pinot it is long overdue to get offspring in numbers. The commercials are now off the turnips and in the lambing fields being feed a 20% nut using the snacker in preparation for lambing. Again great excitement this year with the first ever ewes in lamb to Logies in the Republic of Ireland due end of March, also we are looking forward to seeing the lambs from our €1,200 Lleyn ram investment made in September last year.

Even though we haven’t even got to lambing yet preparation is taking place for feeding next winter. Fields for silage will be closed over the next few weeks, with fields for reseeding and turnips being earmarked already. We are also reviewing the infrastructure within the farm, with fencing continuing and potential for a new polytunnel being discussed.

Due to expansion over the past few years we have not offered any females for sale from the farm, depending on how lambing goes there may be some hogget’s and ewe lambs offered for sale towards the end of the summer. Anyone that is interested in some of the pedigree or commercial genetics available within the different flocks at Kilconnor please feel free to contact me.

Joe

December 2016

As I write this it is only a few days to Christmas, which means less than two weeks until we are lambing again on the farm. With the fantastic weather this winter so far the ewes were only brought inside over the weekend 2 weeks before lambing. There are only 23 ewes due in January scanned with 38 lambs and we are really looking forward to the start & finish if I was honest.

Since the last update all the Charollais female sales have taken place and we continued to add some ewes replacing the losses from the dog attack last year. The Foyne flock sale was the first one we attended and purchased two ewes a four year old and a shearling ewe. The first ewe is a four year old proven ewe by Ballyhibben Lone Trader carrying twins to the 2009 Premier champion Bawnard Tiger, a really powerful deep sheep we thought she was the pick of the pens on the day. Second ewe bought was a shearling that caught our eye prior to the sale; she is by Logie Durno Laird and out of a Hondu Investigator Dam her twin brother sold for 1,800 euros at the premier sale in 2015. Unfortunately she scanned empty on the day of the sale, but we took a chance buying her and let out with the April flock running with Pinot. She was tipped by Pinot within a few days of arriving and didn’t seem to repeat at any stage over the next couple of weeks, so here is hoping for a successful scan next time. Other sale we attended was the Awbeg dispersal sale of the McCarthy family from Cork; we bought a smart ewe lamb that caught my eye prior to the sale. This lamb was February born by Lisfuncheon Pole Position and out of a Cardoon dam sired by Foulrice Captain. We decided not to tip this lamb and let her run dry with the April ewe lambs for the winter, hopefully joining the January lambing flock in 2017.

The rams went out with the all the commercial and remaining Pedigrees on October 29th and scanning has already been booked for 4th February 2017. Pinot went out with all the pedigrees for April, and can’t wait to see how the scan goes in February. The April lambing Charollais have really turned into a nice bunch of ewes and I think are a slightly stronger bunch now than the January ewes. All the retained January ewe lambs from the past two seasons, four French ewe purchases, purchased Logie ewe full sister of Arjane Klansman and two Deerpark ewes all have been introduced into the April flock in past two years. Considering this I have held back four homebred January ewe lambs, four ewe lambs bought from Friarstown flock and the ewe lamb bought from Awbeg dispersal to become part of the January lambing flock in 2017. There are ten April born ewe lambs being retained as well this year, and some of these will also go into the January lambing flock in 2017. It might seem mad planning for lambing 2018 when mating for 2017 has just ended, but this is the level of planning I think is required to keep the flock developing.

In the commercial flock 100 Lleyns have gone out with pedigree Lleyn rams, 200 ewes with the Logie rams, 250 ewes and 150 ewe lambs gone out with Charollais rams. We managed to purchase 40 proven Lleyn ewes from the 1647 flock which we are delighted with, of these ewes 15 are related to our recent ram purchase so they are running with the Logie rams for lambing 2017. We are considering keeping any ram lambs entire from this cross to see what they produce and if any appetite for these hybrids we may offer Logie/Lleyn shearlings for sale alongside the Lleyn shearling rams in 2018.

All that is left is to wish everyone a happy Christmas and good scanning in the New Year.

Joe

October 2016

Hard to believe we are into October, one of the busiest months on the farm as we get geared up for the main mating season. September gone and with it most of the Charollais rams are now sold, they are only two ram lambs and two hogget’s left available for sale and two of these will need to be kept for our own use along with three other rams already picked out.

As well has ram sales we have been busy buying rams this month with the two Logie’s arriving from the Ingram family in Scotland, first Logies ever to arrive in Republic of Ireland. The rams have really surpassed all expectations being incredible long and great depth of body, with a kindness I want for ease of lambing. As outdoor lambing system here for many years and our sheep are developed to cope with that system, I am hoping that may have found the breed to add exactly what looking for into the ewes. Pictures of the rams on the day they arrived are up in the commercial gallery.

We also attended the Lleyn sale in Roscommon on the 24th September with the aim of purchasing a ram. While an enjoyable day out the late start of the sale, the slowness of the auctioneer and the pen layout of the mart soon diminished my enthusiasm, with it being 7pm before the rams started to be sold. I think my advice to anyone running the Lleyn society would be to start the sale at 11am, and also consider either the venue or change ring in the current venue. If the sale is left in its current format I cannot envisage visiting it in future years. On a more positive note prior to arriving at the sale I had marked a couple of rams of interest in the catalogue, and was pleasantly surprised that my first choice on paper was in my opinion the stand out ram in the yard. While not placed in the show the ram from Simon Brown 1647 flock was one of the best Lleyns I’ve seen, very long while correct along topline, great backend and a cracking smart head. The ram is by an Incheoch ram and out of an Incheoch bred dam; the Incheoch flock is run by the McGowan family in Scotland. The ram went well over budget costing 1,120 the 2nd highest price on the day behind the champion; hopefully it proves to be money well spent. Pictures of the ram on the day he arrived are up in the commercial gallery.

Elsewhere on the farm we continue getting the ewes ready for the mating season. The ewes will be split between groups for specific rams over the next two weeks, and the ewe lambs will be weighed with the ones heavy enough going to the ram and the remainder being run dry over the winter. At this stage we also have 20 April born ram lambs out on grass, these will checked over the next few weeks with the best 10 retained to be sold as hogget’s next year. The 10 retained will be let out with some aged ewes to work and mature for 3 weeks and the remainder will be sent to the factory. We also have done one more ewe purchase for 30 aged Lleyn ewes; this will arrive on farm from a trusted source over the next couple of weeks and will hopefully run with the Lleyn stock rams.

We would like to thank everyone who have bought rams from us this year all the best in mating season, and anyone looking for a ram please contact us as there are a couple left to be sold.

Joe

September 2016

As we head into September we can look back at the summer and a very busy time on the farm.

The Charollais premier sale took place the end of July in Tullow, it was the first good day weather wise in about two weeks and this impacted hugely on the number of commercial farmers at the sale. Commercial farmers are the key to a successful trade as they keep the trade going; as a consequence it was a difficult sale. Considering this we had a successful enough day selling twice to €600 and an empty trailer going home with all sold. The ram lambs were sold to a Kildare breeder and the other one went off the lush surroundings of Lisbeg farm in Galway, maybe we’ll see the ram on TV next year. The shearling rams home is unknown, but whoever bought him got a genuine sheep reared on grass with fantastic muscle and weight gain.

We also attended the Tullow show in August and had a very successful day. We came 2nd with a ewe lamb and also 2nd in ewe class with a 5 year old ewe. In the Ram class hogget and above we came first with Pinot, and to round off a great day we got reserve champion with Pinot. This is the only show we attend each year and even though I don’t have much interest in showing it was very nice to receive the flock’s first ever red rosette. Also for pedigree Charollais flock in August we purchased four ewe lambs privately from Friarstown flock in Leitrim, these lambs are by Tullyear Oman a ram we greatly admired when purchased for 3,200gns in Dungannon 2014. We haven’t picked up the lambs yet but are greatly looking forward to collecting them.

In other parts of the farm we have been purchasing stock for the commercials, the commercial flock is being extended this year to lamb over 700 ewes. To achieve this 120 ewe lambs have been retained from the pedigree Lleyns and Lleyn x Mule ewe lambs. We also need to purchase stock to achieve the numbers; twenty Lleyn ewe lambs were purchased from Seamus Killen in County Down, 30 Mule hogget’s and 20 Mule ewe lambs were purchased at the annual Mayo Mule & Greyface sale in Ballinrobe. To continue with the expansion into next year a new breed will be arriving on the farm over the next couple of weeks. We have purchased two Logie Hybrid rams from the Ingrams in Scotland; these rams are a fixed Hybrid breed that was developed on ½ Lleyn, ¼ Charollais and ¼ Texel breeding. These rams will be run with 250 mules with the aim of producing ewe lambs for breeding stock on the farm. This is the first time we are aware of any Logie hybrids arriving into Southern Ireland, and if successful we may offer 10/20 ewe lambs for sale next year.

Sales in the commercial flock started with 100 lambs being delivered to ICM Camolin in July at 4.85 a kilo averaging €99. These lambs would have been 85 Mule x Charollais and 15 pedigree Lleyn weathers, they received no meal and were all finished off grass. We also sold our first ever Lleyn ram lamb, at lambing we kept 4 pedigree Lleyn ram lambs entire as an experiment and two of these turned into lovely sheep. We had an enquiry about a maternal ram and showed the farmer these two lambs, and one was purchased to breed replacements in an expanding small flock.

We will put pictures up of all the above purchases and sheep as we can in the gallery.

To finish on a sad note the decision was made to retire Kilronan Zanardi in August. Zanardi was badly injured during the dog attack last year and after being well looked after during the year we thought he had turned a corner, so much so that we put him out with 6 January lambing ewes. Unfortunately since going out with the ewes Zanardi went backwards and we decided that is it his day is done. All January lambs and hogget’s by him have sold this year, which leaves just four April ram lambs by him on the farm. Hopefully a couple of ewes hold in lamb for January and we get a cracking ram lamb to keep here on the farm by him, for now it is thank you Zanardi for all the enjoyment and hopefully someday we will have as an impressive commercial sire here again. As a relatively new flock the impact such a ram has cannot be understated, it seems just like yesterday he was let out of the trailer here and my father said ‘now that’s a ram’ and so it proved. Some of his top lambs were H1-13-009 used in CPT at 6 months old and later sold to Wicklow breeder for €1,000, H1-14-010 sold to Wexford breeder unfortunately killed young by another ram but breed very well for 2 seasons, H1-14-008 a magnificently powerful ram used here as a lamb and sold at the premier in 2015 to a Kildare breeder, H1-15-037 sold to a Wicklow farmer was my favourite ram by Zanardi and H1-16-011 sold this year at the premier to Lisbeg farm.

But Zanardi’ s real success was in the commercial field, each year since I first sold lambs by him I have received calls from customers specifically asking for his sons or ‘one of those mad sheep’.

Joe

July 2016

As we are in the middle of July we have had an extremely busy month so far on the farm. All commercial lambs have had their first proper worm dose, been clicked and received a mineral bolus this month. As we head towards the end of this month the first draft of these lambs will be taken to the factory and the remainder will be weaned. The lambs have done really well this year after a difficult spring and weights are exceptional off grass only.

At the start of the month we attended the UK Charollais premier sale in Worcester. We arrived early on the Friday and gave us time to have a really good look at the stock prior to the show in the afternoon. The rams that really stood out for us was the Oakchurch, Rhaeder and the Rainbow Lindisfarne sired lambs in the Knockin & Edstaston pens. We found the lambs in general had very white heads and carried lot of wool compared to the rams we breed and what our customers are looking for. While the head cover is something I would think the UK customers are looking for, I would question the amount of wool being carried by a lot of sheep in the sale. As we arrived you could hear the hand shears clipping, my companion who works on the farm here asked what the noise was as he had never heard it before. Clipping is a skill but I am really happy it’s a skill that is not in our society as believe it is unnecessary and only encourages breeding wool when not required. While we did run an Oakchurch lamb in partnership with two other Irish breeders, not requiring a new stock ram and lack of enthusiasm in general for the stock meant we went home empty handed. It was a very enjoyable weekend and we will be back, there is definitely a place for UK sired stock ram in our breeding plans going by what we saw on show.

Back in our own pedigree flock we have had a busy month for July in regards sales, picking lambs for the premier sale and organising the January lambing ewes for sponging at the end of July. We sold 4 rams privately this month, the first a shearling ram to a County Laois pedigree flock as their new stock ram. This ram is a son Lisfuncheon Drico out of a Ballyhibben ewe bought as a ewe lamb in 2010, this ewe has produced some fantastic ewe lambs over the years and this was her first male offspring after a long wait. A returning client had the pick of the ram lambs less the two premier entries and bought H1-16-008 triplet brother to one of the premier rams, this lamb is a big long lamb with super muscle of 40.1mm at scanning. Another customer arrived the same day and bought a grass fed April shearling H1-15-057 and also one of my favourite lambs this year H1-16-017, the shearling is by Oscar and the lamb is by Drico. I wish all purchases the best with their new rams and hope they provide the goods in their flocks. This brings sales to nine already with six shearlings and three lambs sold, we never had so many rams sold this early and enquiries keep getting early each year which is fantastic.

Sheep Ireland were on farm this month to scan the lambs for muscle and fat, whiles its very late to be scanning the January lambs and wouldn’t be included in our ratings for the premier sale it is something I see worthwhile. We scanned nineteen January lambs and the scanner picked a further twenty from our April flock. We were delighted with our scanning figures, with H1-16-015 a Zanardi son while far from the heaviest lamb he had the highest figures for the January lambs at 40.8mm with fat at 0.4mm. In the April flock a Drico sired hogget’s lamb H1-16-050 surpassed all expectations with a muscle figure of 28.8mm with fat 0.4mm at weight of 40.5kg, this lamb achieved these figures off grass only and with a 2015 born dam by Zanardi.

Finally we completed our Premier sale entries this month, entering two ram lambs and one shearling. The two ram lambs are H1-16-011 and H1-16-010, H1-16-011 is by Zanardi out of a Bolinaspect ewe and H1-16-010 is by Oscar out of the best homebred ewe in the flock. After a neglected start the lambs have really done well this year and these are the pick of the bunch. These lambs are outside since January and are only fed once a day and not pushed in any manner. While I expect them to look smaller than other lambs at the sale they are still well in excess of 80 kilos and are very correct with loads of muscle. The shearling entry is H1-15-059 by Oscar out of the ewe we wanted from the Deerpark flock dispersal. This ram is April born and as with all our April lambs was grass fed only as a lamb and only received ½ lb of meal daily from end of December until early spring, then receiving grass only until four weeks prior to the sale. I think this shearling ram is a superb example of the bred and this is the only reason I would bring a grass fed ram to a premier sale, hopefully others will think the same. There is a link on the home page with more details on these rams.

I wish everyone an enjoyable remainder to the summer, and hopefully will see some of you at the Charollais premier sale at the end of July.

Joe

June 2016

Since the last update it has been a busy time on the farm with lambs thriving and great grass growth after a very poor start. Rams sales have started with three rams sold to returning customers and two more customers due this week to look at rams for this season.

Decision this year has been made to expand sheep numbers in the commercial flock, and part of this decision we have ordered two Logie Hybrid rams from the Ingram family in Scotland. We will continue with our Lleyn approach parallel to the Logie’s, as they will be used mainly across Mayo Mules for producing replacement ewe lambs. We are really excited about this approach as it means a new direction for the commercial flock here, while using knowledge built up using Lleyn genetics over the past 6 years.

In the pedigree flock the April lambs have done very well off grass only, with their 40 day weights taken we are very happy with adwg’s from 325gms to 500gms. These lambs will be weaned end of June and put out together for the remainder of the summer and autumn until the winter is over.

The January lambs have picked up extremely well after being neglected due to a family illness early in the year. Originally the premier sale didn’t seem a realistic target this year, but now with some excellent thrive since the weather improved we might bring 2 or 3 rams. A hogget ram H1-15-059 born mid-April last year is really catching our eye, this ram as with all our April lambs received no concentrate as a lamb and only ½ pound from end November through the winter. This ram averaged 430gms adwg from birth through to weaning last year, and was used on ewe lambs in November and also a double 5 star. While obviously the ram is smaller than most hogget rams that would have received meal as a lamb he is well over 100kg and we are considering entering him in the premier sale to see if any interest in a superb grass raised shearling.

The lambs are doing really well and at the moment we are looking at H1-16-010, H1-16-011, H1-16-017 and H1-16-022. Two of these rams are by Rockvilla Oscar and we have decided to sell either Oscar or Drico this year, reason is because of reduction in ewe numbers due to dog attack and that we have gone back to split lambing with majority being lambed in April we just don’t need as many stock rams. In reality two rams would probably do and we have four, so made tough decision to sell one. If interested please call me on the number on the site or send a note through the contact page. Back to the lambs hopefully two of these will make the premier sale, all four are from proven dam lines and believe would make excellent stock rams for any flock.

We are still waiting on Sheep Ireland to complete the muscle and fat scanning for this year, and also on the Ovigen results. Once all these details are available we will put up on the website.

We are also heading to Worcester for the British Charollais premier sale this year on the 2nd July. This completes the trio of Ireland, France and Britain premier sales after visiting Palinges last year. The cheque book will very much be left at home as this is just a day out for us, we might visit Palinges later in the year for their female sale but we will see how the year pans out.

Look forward to seeing everyone at the premier this year or at the house for a ram. If you are looking for a non-pampered lamb or grass reared hogget please contact us and we will discuss you specific needs.

Joe

April 2016

Lambing has more or less finished on the farm with only 5 commercial hogget’s left. April lambing went very well this year even considering it probably was the worst weather experienced for outdoor lambing on the farm. Rain, wind and low temperatures impacted the man maybe more than the sheep, again our Mule and Lleyn cross ewes with Charollais rams approach seems to work well outdoors.

The April pedigrees went very well as we were very concerned after the dog attack, three ewes presented still born lambs but all others were alive and well. This may seem an unusual take on 3 ewes carrying dead lambs, but considering the ordeal they went through we were very happy with the overall result of 38 living lambs from the remaining 21 ewes. Hopefully next year we can get back to the number of 35 April lambing pedigrees as the dog attack cost us between deaths, empty scans and still born lambs 14 ewes from the batch put to the ram at the end of October.

Other events on the farm since the last update involved receiving our Ovigen pilot programme tags. We have 17 rams that will be offered for sale this year with genetic information available from the Ovigen pilot programme. We will add the Ovigen rams to the sales page for people to review details on Sheep.ie if they wish.

The January lambs have been weaned and weights taken for Sheep Ireland, we are very happy with the lambs and couple are starting to catch our eye. Ram lambs looking well at the moment are H1-16-011, H1-16-010, H1-16-017, and H1-16-014. H1-16-010 is by Rockvilla Oscar out of a consisted breeding ewe H1-11-002 who has breed some of the best lambs in the flock over the past 4 years. In the ewe lambs H1-16-001 has really captured everyone’s eye; she is a full sister to Kilconnor Charlie stock ram in H80 flock.

Hopefully spring will arrive soon and we can get some grass growth and the lambs will continue to thrive.

Thanks,

Joe

February 2016

A new year and new arrivals is name of the game on the farm first week in January. Eighteen ewes lambed and it was a very successful lambing with twenty eight lambs on the ground, only losses were two triplets each born still born to two ewes. It was very nice to have a hassle free lambing, especially considering we are still feeling the effects of the dog attack.

Four more ewes attacked have died since the initial attack bringing the total fatalities to eleven, seven pedigree ewes and four mule ewe lambs. Included in the additional fatalities was a 2013 born full sister to Lisfuncheon Princess the three time all Ireland supreme champion. Scanning takes place on February 6th and it’s a busy day with over 700 ewes to scan, it will be a difficult day for the April pedigree flock and any pedigree ewes in lamb for April will be seen very much as a positive at this stage.

More positive note the January lambs are out of the shed in the field where they belong, now to grow and provide hardy quality recorded rams for Customers in the autumn. The French sheep also arrived in January and are exceptional, even better than I remember when purchasing them. At this stage getting a picture of them has proved difficult but I have added one of the new ram to the gallery and will add ones of the ewes when I get some. I have also added pictures of the new born lambs into the gallery.

At the Charollais AGM in December was delighted that my proposal on the night to remove shows from the society sales from mid-September on was agreed. My rational was that in these commercial sales farmers are tight for time and have no interest in shows, this gives an additional hour to start the sales on time and let the farmers judge with their bids. Now I feel under pressure to attend some of the sales as last year due to high demand from the house I only attended the premier sale.

A major positive for the pedigree Charollais flock is we have been picked as one of ten Charollais flocks to be involved in a pilot Ovigen project with Sheep Ireland. This means that majority of rams for sale from the farm in 2016 will have genomic information available, including parentage, Scrapie status and numerous other markers. Delighted to be included is not the word as I have been undertaking my own genomic testing on the stock rams for few years now.

Here is to scanning next weekend, and to everyone for all the best for lambing 2016.

December 2015

Since the last update we have had one of the toughest days experienced on the farm. At lunch time November 25th I received a phone call from the guy who works on the farm that dogs were attacking the ewes, and he was on his way to get his guns. At that stage I went home from work unaware of scale, which ewes and possible scene that awaited me on arrival. A quick call to the Garda to inform them of the situation and intention to shot any dogs, I was informed that was well within our rights and to call them back once the situation had unfolded.

Just as I arrived home and had got the quad to find out the problem phone rang, the ewes attacked were my April lambing pedigrees, two dogs had been shot and one got away badly injured. In this field were 25 ewes, 5 pedigree ewe lambs, 10 Mule ewe lambs and Kilronan Zanardi. As I got to the field saw numerous sheep bodies scattered around and some very nervous girls bunched up in the corner. Before leaving the field to find the other dog we checked the ewes and found 4 dead and 1 badly injured which we needed to euthanize, we also called the Garda to inform them and they advised would call out within the hour. At this stage a quick look at the main bunch showed blood but nothing that seemed as bad so we took off after the 3rd dog. We tracked him across a couple of fields but lost the trail in a wood, after an hour decided to call it a day and on way back called into the village shop. In the village shop we were informed that a local was looking for 3 dogs fitting the description and had a Facebook post up all day requesting information to find them. A quick call to the Garda we were told to stay away and they would approach the owner.

At this stage we returned to the field to review the damage and analysis the losses. On returned we found another dead ewe, and a quick check of the bunch saw 5 badly injured. As we gathered up the bodies the death toll was 6 and 2 dogs. The ewes lost were 3 Mule ewe lambs, an aged Deerpark ewe, and two shearling pedigree ewes. The aged Deerpark ewe was 9 years old and as fresh now as when she was bought as a 4 year old, she always produced two quality lambs. The two shearling pedigrees were both by Lisfuncheon Drico and from the all-female lambing of April 2014. Even more disappointing was one H1-14-030 was from the brilliant ram breeding line of A54-08-063, the dominance of ram lambs in this family we are left with only 2 females from this line within the flock. We got the remaining survivors in to check them out, five additional sheep were injured and had to be brought to the vet and two ewes had jumped the fence into the next field but were unhurt. The injured included A3-09-016 the ewe bought from the Deerpark dispersal sale her daughter A3-11-005 breed Kilconnor Charlie sold for €1,000 in 2014, she hurt her shoulder but vet said it would heal. Another injured was H1-15-016 along with her twin our best ewe lamb of 2015, her face was torn extremely badly and questions now remain if she survives can she be kept for breeding. The other ewes injured were 2 mule ewe lambs and another pedigree shearling ewe all bitten in the chest but vet thought should all survive.

At this stage we do not know the overall damage in terms of ewes slipping lamb, but we do know in the two fields beside these ewes were 100 pedigree Lleyns and the January lambing pedigree flock. If the dogs had got into those fields the damage would have been massive, also the prompt reaction of the guy who came upon the situation kept the losses in single figures. The owner of the dogs has accepted responsibility and agreed to pay compensation, he has learnt an expensive lesson and possibly a day in court - but I would prefer to have my ewes.

The amount of goodwill through phone calls, messages and callers to the farm has been over whelming since the attack and I am amazed at how many sheep farmers have to experience this problem each year.

Positive notes since the last update are;

We came 6th in the shearling class at the ICSS female sale at the end of October, new breeders from Borris in Carlow bought the ewe in lamb to Zanardi. I hope she is very successful for them and wish them all the best with lambing.

The day after the dog attack I got confirmation of our membership details for the Lleyn society. We now are also registered Lleyn breeders with flock number 2604; the plan for the Lleyn flock is produce registered Lleyn ewes for our commercial flock with no ram breeding plans at the moment. The flock has also joined Sheep Ireland and stock rams will be gene marker tested the same as in the Charollais flock.

We had a very successful scanning for the January flock with 1.8 scan. With 20 ewes lambing in January and half in lamb to Zanardi we are massively looking forward to lambing, especially to have something positive to talk about after the last week.

It looks like we will have our French purchases here for Christmas; it will be nice to have some new sheep coming onto the farm after last week’s losses.

Finally the Charollais Society AGM is on December 5th and I will be attending. We need to keep the societies focus relevant to commercial farmers and not just the elite few pedigree breeders. We breed farmer rams here and aim is to increase information available on the rams each year, while breeding fit for work and not over feed sheep.

Thanks

Joe

September 2015

September has been the busiest time for ram sales ever experienced on the farm. We have a great number of returning customers this year looking for rams, with one such customer buying four rams. The majority of customers bought more than one ram, and many new ones contacted me off the back of conversations with previous customers. At the moment there are only 8 ram lambs left on the farm, and at least six of these will be required for our own commercial flock.

We had a successful visit to the Tullow show, it was a great day and there was an excellent turn out of Charollais. We came 4th in both the ram and ewe lamb classes which we were delighted with considering the sheep are not feed to show standard.

One piece of bad news over the past few weeks was news of a bluetongue outbreak in France close to Charolles. The consequence of this is our purchase of the ram recently at the French national show and sale is now in doubt, we are waiting news of next steps but it definitely means no ewes will be lambed down to this ram in 2015. While this is disappointing, keeping a good health status in the flock is more important than any individual sheep.

We also have been very active with the commercial flock in September. As we do every year we attended the Mayo Mule and Greyface ewe sale in Ballinrobe. We purchased 100 hogget’s and 10 lambs on the day, while prices were up about €15 on last year we are still very satisfied with our purchases. Pictures of the sale and purchased stock have been added to the gallery.

Also for the commercial flock in September we attended the Lleyn in Ballymena. We have been crossing Lleyn rams with Mules for a few years with great success; this year decision was made to buy some pedigree Lleyns with plans to purchase more from the UK in the spring. The aim is to close about half the flock within 5 years and move towards a Lleyn ewe for majority of the flock. This decision hasn’t been made for an ease of management and health awareness, rather than any dissatisfaction with the Mule ewes. We purchased 30 hoggets in Ballymena, including the 2nd prize winners from Aubrey Bothwell. Pictures from the day have also been added to the gallery.

Finally a decision has been made to sell a few females from the Charollais flock. The plan for the Charollais flock was always to keep numbers below 50 breeding females, at the moment we are above this number. The reason for the high ewe numbers is mainly down to April lambing in 2014, when 22 ewes lambed and with the exception of one ram lamb we had all ewes. The best hogget from the April 2014 lambs and two ewe lambs by Kilronan Zanardi will be offered for sale. Details are listed below, we scan on October 10th and they will be available for sale from then. If not sold privately they will be entered in the Irish Charollais Female sale October 24th.

Hogget Ewe

H1-14-035

Sire: Lisfuncheon Drico (Premier Sale Supreme Champion 2013)

Dam: B3-10-140 Dam Sire: Carnew Inch Perfect

Dam is proven Ballyhibben ewe bought as a lamb in 2010

Served by Kilronan Zanardi 7th August, did not repeat. To be scanned 10th October. This ewe received no meal as a lamb and grown into an exceptional hogget, she will continue to improve for purchaser.

Ewe Lambs

These ewe lambs have received no meal since early April

H1-15-001

Sire: Kilronan Zanardi

Dam: A3-11-001 Dam Sire: Bawnard Usain

This ewe lamb is a full sister to Kilconnor Paudie and is 5 Stars. The dam of this ewe is very consistent Deerpark ewe sired by 2010 Premier Sale Supreme Champion Bawnard Usain.

H1-15-010

Sire: Kilronan Zanardi

Dam: H1-13-025 Dam Sire: Deerpark Empowerment

This is a really smart ewe lamb from an excellent Bawnard ewe line. Deerpark Empowerment was sired by Lowerye Impressive top index sire in UK in 2011

Joe

August 2015

Since the last update it has been a very busy time on the farm.

Firstly the premier sale took place at the end of July in Tullow, we entered a hogget ram and a two ram lambs. In a sticky trade sold the hogget ram by Kilronan Zanardi for €750 to a Kildare breeder and a lamb also by Zanardi for €550 to a Wicklow farmer for his STAP requirement. Also during July sold three lambs directly from the house to customers for their STAP task for 2015, don’t think I ever sold lambs as early in previous years.

As I write this have just arrived back from France and the French national show and ram station sale. Having been slightly disappointed with recent UK ram purchases, I decided to try and purchase a ram at the sale to bring new genetics into the flock. The auction on the day is for 90 ram lambs that were chosen off farms by the society in May and have been in a test centre since receiving 2lbs of meal only daily and are all shorn. Breeders bring sheep for the show and then also have pens of sheep for sale on the day through basically haggling with local farmers or other breeders for ewe lambs. The society also have a selection committee that pick the best 12 ram lambs out of the breeder pens and these are put for auction as well. Minimum price for all ram lambs station or non in the auction was €500, and once a lamb made this it was sold no option by the breeder to say no sale.

Auction was all electronic using what looked like a remote control, with all bids in €10. A screen showed the price with a timer and each time a bid made the timer reset until no more bids were made. Winning bidder number showed up on the screen then and your name is announced to everyone. I had identified certain rams based on indexes prior to traveling and focused on these rams firstly at the sale.

After viewing all the rams from the station my first choice on paper was lot 17 was still my first choice, he was a big long sheep with the highest Index of 70 offered for sale on the day. As the rams are entered randomly into the ring you need to be on your toes, even though catalogued as 17 the ram lamb was the 4th last lot into the ring. I was successful in purchasing the ram and now hopefully he will be on farm to run with some of the April lambers. We hope to call the ram ‘Pinot’ in tribute to cyclist Thibaut Pinot and his great win on Alpe d’Huez in this year’s Tour de France. I also purchased three ewe lambs from the D14 flock of Dominique Duverne privately on the day. Dominque won many awards on the day, mainly overall male champion and reserve female and female group of three and his stock greatly impressed. Pictures of the sheep purchased and the overall trip are in the gallery.

The flock is attending its only show of the year on Sunday, the Tullow show. We are bringing one ram lamb and two ewes, while we have sold probably our better lambs already this year I believe the lamb being brought is a real stylish lamb by Lisfucheon Drico. The two ewe lambs have not been feed since the end of May, but have grown on well on grass. The first ewe lamb is the twin of the ram lamb, the second is by Kilronan Zanardi and a full sister to Kilconnor Paudie sold to D74 Ballywilliam flock at the 2014 premier sale. As this is our only show this year we go for a good day out and meet customers & friends rather than any ambitions as the sheep are not feed for showing.

Finally the breeding season for 2016 has started with twenty ewes sponged and running with the rams for the last week. The rams used for the early ewes this year are Kilronan Zanardi and Lisfucheon Drico, Rockvilla Oscar will run with the ewes for repeats.

Hopefully we will have a nice end to the summer and lamb prices will improve.

Joe

June 2015

As we are into June it moves to the busy time on the farm. In the past 6 weeks the ewes have been shorn, swedes for ewes winter feed has been sown and 3 fields have been reseeded. Part of the seeding programme this year we incorporated 1.5kg Tyfon per acre in the reseed, the plan is finish the commercial lambs on this and in doing so reduce if not remove the need to concentrate purchases. Aim is to have the April lambs weaning and on the grass/tyfon reseed by 1st August all going well.

The pedigree lambs have been scanned by sheep Ireland and same day genetic information was taken from all ewes and lambs for the Sheep Ireland ovigen project. We have been gene marking our stock rams here for two years now and believe in science as a tool, hopefully the ovigen project will enhance the star profile for rams. It was mentioned by Sheep Ireland that we only scanned 60% of our lambs born this year. We explained that culling is taken seriously within the flock and scanning lamb’s mid-June means that most of the culling had already taken place to obtain best price. We advised Sheep Ireland that they really need to be scanning January lambs considerably earlier if they want to scan all lambs born in the flock. Besides this the lambs scanned well with an average of 34.5 Muscle and low fat average of 0.6mm, the heaviest ram lamb was 70kg and heaviest ewe lamb 63kg.

The all-Ireland Charollais show takes place at Sheep 2015 in Athenry on June 20th. We will be attending as a STAP member but are not bringing any sheep, a prior engagement after the show means bringing sheep is not possible this year. As we have had such a busy year and the pedigrees haven’t got the attention of other years we still plan to enter a show prior to the premier to get a feel for the standard of our ram lambs this year. The premier entries are required soon, we are allowed 5 male entries for this year and the plan is 1 shearling with 3 or 4 ram lambs. The shearling ram will be H1-14-008 a ram held back last year for our own use and is 5 stars across the board. The lambs will be chosen out of H1-15-003, H1-15-007, H1-15-011, H1-15-024, H1-15-036 and H1-15-037, pictures are in the gallery. I’ve already had some phone calls this year for rams, so hopefully it will be a successful year for ram sales.

Finally on sales I have decided to sell Rockvilla Oscar, having made the decision to move back most of the flock to April lambing he is no longer required if anyone is interested please contact me for details.

Finally for my birthday this year I got a nice surprise from my wife, a trip to France for the Charollais show and sale in Palinges on August 7th this year. I have wanted to visit the Palinges show for many years and am really looking forward to it, I will add pictures to the gallery when I return.

Thanks, Joe

April 2015

I have been a little bit tardy in writing an update for the website this year, we had our own new arrival at the end of January and this changed some of the priorities in the last few months (for the better it has to be said).

As I write this lambing of the commercials and few April pedigrees has just ended and with fantastic weather it was very successful lambing season. We only had five pedigrees lambing in April this year of which two were ewe lambs, and we have nine April pedigree lambs on the ground. We were extremely happy that the ewe bought empty at the Kelso dispersal sale lambed healthy triplets, two rams and a ewe. The stand out lamb though from the April lambers is a ewe lamb by Lisfuncheon Drico out of one of the two ewe lambs H1-14-013. We shouldn’t really be surprised though as the ewe lambs dam H1-11-002 is probably the most consistent breeder in the flock. We have this ewe lamb’s twin brother H1-14-014 for sale this year as a shearling; he is five stars for both Terminal and Maternal indices and was kept for use as a lamb on our commercials last year for this reason.

The January lambs after initially being slightly neglected for a few weeks due to our new arrival are now back on track and looking well. We had a visit from the Kelso family over Easter and they commented on how even a bunch of lambs we have this year. Some lambs are starting to catch our attention towards potential premier sale entries. I do not push the lambs for the premier so they look a little small in comparison to some other entries, but as the sale is only four miles from the farm believe it is necessary for us to attend.

Ram lambs catching my attention at the moment are;

H1-15-036 is a real stylish lamb by Carnew Omega out of a homebred shearling ewe by Kilronan Zanardi.

H1-15-003 is a real powerful lamb that has stood out from birth; he is by Lisfuncheon Drico and out of another home bred Zanardi shearling ewe.

H1-15-037 is a really strong lamb by Kilronan Zanardi out of homebred shearling by Deerpark Empowerment; this lamb was 51kg at 100 days and is a grandson of A54-08-063 a ewe who has 6 sons working with the commercials on the farm.

H1-15-005 is a really nice long lamb by Lisfuncheon Drico out of an A68 ewe bought as a lamb couple of years ago.

As said the bunch of lambs are a really nice even bunch and there are some really good ram lambs in addition to the above. I will get some pictures of the lambs over the next week and add them to the gallery.

Thanks, Joe

January 2015

I write this today as 2015 lambing for the pedigree flock has just finished. With nearly 40 ewes lambed this year it was a busy time, especially considering it was only our second year lambing ewes in January. Next year we are considering making a decision on having a 50/50 split between January and April lambers. The lambing went extremely well with some exceptional lambs on the ground; Lisfuncheon Drico especially seems to have produced some lovely ram lambs. Considering we only had 3 rams after him last year an exactly 50/50 split ewes & rams this year from his lambs was a nice result. The two new rams Rockvilla Oscar and Carnew Omega have produced some really nice lambs and Omega especially seems to have brought something different to the flock. I had both these rams along with new Lleyn ram for producing commercial ewes gene marker tested, results are listed below. Zanardi continues to produce quality offspring and how quick his lambs are on their feet continues to impress. If we move to split the pedigree flock 50/50 between January and April we may consider selling one of the four stock rams currently on the farm, which one is to be decided but will probably offered privately for sale.

The commercial flock are due to be scanned next week, and we look forward to results. Hopefully these will be in xline with the 1.85 last year, there are 650 commercials including ewe lambs and 10 pedigree ewes to be scanned. These ewes will get their vaccination booster, mineral bolus and fluke dose over the next few weeks. With the exception of the 10 pedigrees purely for ease of management will all lamb outside.

We have added couple of new born lambs to the gallery and will aim to continue updating the website monthly.

Thanks,

Joe

Gene Marker Results

FootRot

Rockvilla Oscar 1,5

Carnew Omega 1,1

Lleyn 3,3

Cold Tolerance

Rockvilla Oscar A,B

Carnew Omega A,B

Lleyn A,A

Double Muscle

Rockvilla Oscar T+,- Carrier

Carnew Omega -,- Non-Carrier

Lleyn T+,- Carrier

Scrapie

Rockvilla Oscar ARR/ARR

Carnew Omega ARR/ARR

Lleyn ARR/ARR

November 2014

October has been a busy time on the farm getting the commercial flock ready for the rams and scanning the pedigrees. 37 pedigree ewes we put the rams back in July and on October 18th Kieran Byrne scanned the ewes. As we have another arrival due here at the end of January the rams were only let back in for 4 days of one repeat cycle. Considering this we expected a large empty result, but were more than happy when 32 of the ewes scanned in lamb carrying 60 lambs between them. The rams all went out with the commercial ewes on the 2nd November, as always we use our stock rams on the commercials at this time of the year in addition to many homebred rams. Zanardi went out with 200 mules alongside 3 retained sons from this year, Oscar & Omega our new rams went out with 80 commercial ewe lambs and Drico went with the remaining April lambing pedigrees.

November 1st was the date for the Deerpark dispersal of the Kelso Family, the Kelso's were one of the founding members of the Irish Charollais Society. The sale was held in conjunction with production sales for the Duiske and Bolinspect flocks. We had a great interest in the sale as two of our rams were used as service sires on the ewes catalogued. The Deerpark flock had used Rockvilla Oscar on their repeats and 6 ewes were in lamb to him, and the Duiske flock had purchased some semen from Drico earlier in the year which meant 7 ewes from Duiske offered for sale were in lamb to Lisfuncheon Drico. We have a considerable amount of Deerpark breeding in the flock and were especially interested in A3-09-016 and 3 of her daughters in the sale. A3-09-016 is the dam of our ewe A3-11-005 who's the dam of H1-13-009 & H1-13-010 the two shearlings we sold at the premier sale this year for combined price of €1,600. A3-11-005 also produced a quality ewe lamb this year, and we liked the opportunity to introduce more of this family into the Kilconnor flock. We also had our eye on another couple of ewes, especially VV-06-026 and her off-spring. While this VV ewe and off spring are not the biggest sheep they are very correct and have great muscle and style.

The sale was a huge success for the Kelso family with top price of €2,000 achieved, with many sheep making over €1,000 and numerous ewes selling to Germany and UK. We were successful in purchasing A3-09-016, one of her daughters A3-14-019 and also A3-14-005 a daughter of VV-06-026. We were also under bidders to the two remaining daughters of A3-09-016 and to VV-06-026 herself. While understanding you can't buy everything, being outpriced for the daughters of A-09-016 I think VV-06-026 is one that got away and I should have gone further. Pictures from the day are now in the gallery.

One of the major positives from the sale is how well all stock frome ach flock sold, especially stock in lamb to our rams. We look forward to next year in seeing if any of their progeny comes through in shows and sales, and see how they perform in different flocks.

Finally blood samples have been taken from the new rams on the farm, Rockvilla Oscar, Carnew Omega and the Lleyn from Michael Keegan. These samples have been sent to Lincoln University in New Zealand to provide gene marker results for T+ Double Muscling, Cold Tolerance and FootRot. Once the results become available they will be posted on the site the same as results for Drico and Zanardi are available.

I wish everyone a warm and enjoyable winter.

Joe

September 2014

As the summer comes to end Ram sales are in full swing at the moment. All shearlings have been sold with all bar 3 sold from the house which we are delighted with. Selling from the house helps us create a connection with customers, lets them see the sheep in their natural environment and also see the dams's and sires of all the rams. The shearlings averaged 580 euros this year for 10 sold which we believe is a very good average for our first major year of sales. The ram lambs are now starting to move with 5 sold to date, of which 3 have been sold directly from the farm.

The 40 ewes went out with 4 rams on the 8th August, with two blocks of 20 going with Zanardi & Drico on the 19th August for any repeats. The rams were raddled for the repeats and looks like around 10 were marked. Next is scanning and hopefully the empty rate will be very low, any empties will go out with Drico alongside 4 January ewe lambs on November 1st.

In the commercial flock all sheep were dipped on September 14th along with all the pedigrees. We also attended the Mayo Mule and Greyface groups sale in Ballinrobe on August 29th, we purchased 90 hogget ewes and 30 ewe lambs at the sale. Prices were slightly higher than other years, but the quality of stock we thought was exceptional. We also visited Michael Keegan in Wicklow in August and purchased a new Lleyn ram to run with the Mules, this ram is a fine sheep and will run alongside the other Lleyn we purchased from Michael last year.

We have 9 ram lambs left to sell all STAP eligible, all are listed on the for sale page and are available directly from the farm.

Joe

August 2014

The flock entered its first premier sale on July 26th and it proved to be a very successful exercise. Two shearlings and a ram lamb were brought and a full clearance was got with good prices. H1-13-009 our top shearling sold for €920 to Wicklow breeder John O'Toole, we were delighted with this result considering he was our first ram into the sale. Twin to the first shearling H1-13-010 next sold for €600 to a well know local farmer for his STAP requirement. Finally our lamb H1-14-010 was sold to Wexford breeders Paddy and Mary D'Arcy for their pedigree flock for €600, this lamb was a cracker and well not sold originally in the ring at €500 we were considering keeping him. We wish all the purchasers well with their stock and hope to see them again in the future. A major positive from the sale has been interest from local farmers who were at the sale but didn't buy on the day, calls to the house is our favourite method of sale and long may it continue.

July 28th was the date for the Northern Ireland premier sale and we attended along with the Kelso family of flock A3. The Kelso's are dispersing their flock this flock this year after 25 years, after successfully selling their stock ram for €2,500 at the premier sale they were looking to buy a ram with us to run against related sheep to their stock ram. We made four choices from the excellent sheep presented for sale, a ram from Rockvilla, one from Carnew and two from Riverdale. We were over the moon to purchase our first choice 14VV01335 Rockvilla Oscar, he is by Loanhead Nashville and out of a daughter of the famous ewe Rutland Lightening. While we had a ram purchased in connection with the Kelso's we required an additional ram for our own flock, so we gave our second choice from the Carnew pen a run. Again we were successful and purchased 14ZXJ00516 Carnew Omega, he is by Castellau Lord Mayor and a full ET brother to Carnew Nijinsky stock ram at the UK Parkgate Flock, Carnew Nugent reserve champion Dungannon premier 2013 and top price ewe lamb at the Dungannon female sale 2013. Pictures and all the information on both rams are up on our stock ram page.

The next day out for the flock will be the Tinahely show on August 4th, this will be our final show of 2014 as unfortunately we have a wedding the day before the Tullow Show and will be unable to bring stock. We are bringing two ram lambs, two ewe lambs and a superb shearling ram by Kilronan Zanardi to show in the ram class. Tinahely is a fantastic show and we look forward to meeting everyone on the day.

The next sales we will be entering are the Tullow September sale, and Kilkenny September sale. All sheep are for sale at the house on a first come basis and even if a ram is entered in a sale does not mean it will not be sold beforehand.

Enjoy the rest of the summer

July 2014

June has been a great month on the farm and for farmers in general, a sunny month with rain when required has driven grass growth and lamb thrive. We received back our Gene Marker results from Lincoln University in New Zealand for both Kilronan Zanardi, Lisfuncheon Drico and our two Lleyn rams used for commercial replacements. The details are listed below for each of the rams, if anyone has questions in relation to this please contact and we will explain the best to our knowledge. All markers have two results one for each gene, rams will have a 50% chance of which they will pass to each off spring. I hope customers see these information as an additional tool and proof of our aim to improve our product through information and not feed.

Cold Tolerance: I guess lamb survival at birth related to the lamb inherited genes, personally really interested in this as I lamb out. Scale is A to C with A above average, B average and C below average.

Kilronan Zanardi: A,A

Lisfuncheon Drico: A,B

Lleyn's: both were A,A

T+Muscle: This is for the Double Muscle which adds more lean meat, ram is either a non-carrier, single carrier or double carrier.

Lisfuncheon Drico: T+,T+ Double Carrier

Kilronan Zanardi: Non Carrier

Lleyn: One was T+,T+ and the other T+

FootRot: This is for resistance to footrot, the scale is 1 to 5, with 1 the most resistant and 5 the least resistant.

Lisfuncheon Drico: 1,4

Kilronan Zanardi: 2.4

Lleyns: One was 1,3 and other unreadable

Scrapie:

Lisfuncheon Drico: ARR/ARR

Kilronan Zanardi: ARR/ARQ

Lleyn: Both ARR/ARR

Premier Sale 26th July 2014

We have entered 4 rams for our first ever premier sale, 2 shearlings and 2 lambs. The shearlings are outside from a week old and the lambs since the end of January 2014. These rams are not pushed and will improve as they get older, we retain 5 rams annually for our own commercial use and this is the main driver in our breeding programme. Outlined below are the rams entered and reserve rams which will be used as substitutes if required. We could have entered all as we have 2 years of ram crops and are all excellent examples of the breed, but we were limited to 4 entries.

Lot 54: H1-13-009

DOB: 1st April 2013 Sire: Kilronan Zanardi Dam Sire: Lowerye Impressive

A superbly powerful shearling ram that is 5 stars for both Terminal and Replacement indices with LambPlus. This ram was used by Sheep Ireland for CPT in 2013 and a consequence has 42 offspring on Sheep Irelands database, this has led to very high LambPlus accuracy figures for this ram. This ram also qualified for the All Ireland at the Clonmel Show.

Lot 55: H1-13-010

DOB: 1st April 2013 Sire: Kilronan Zanardi Dam Sire: Lowerye Impressive

The twin to the previous lot, this is beautifully balanced ram. While he may not have the overall power of his brother this ram is one of the most correct rams we have bred to date. We wanted to resist bringing twins to the sale but we could not leave this fella at home. Like himself he is a nicely balanced high 3 Stars for both indices.

Reserve Shearling: H1-13-054

DOB: 15th April 2013 Sire: Kilronan Zanardi Dam Sire: Wind Swept Basil

The stylish ram made the decision on shearlings for the sale very difficult. The last lamb born in 2013 he always stood out as a stylish ram, I am very disappointed to not have this fella at the premier sale. Again by the excellent Kilronan Zanardi his dam was a successful show and breeding ewe for the Deerpark flock. She produced many rams sold to breeders including Deerpark Empowerment former stock ram at the Kilconnor Flock.

Lot 170: H1-14-001

DOB: 31st December 2013 Sire: Ballyhibben Olympic Gold Dam Sire: Liscullane Dynamite

The powerful ram lamb was bought in a ewe at Sarah & Michael O’Neill’s production sale in 2013. He is by the 2012 Premier sale reserve champion Ballyhibben Olympic Gold and carries the same power as his sire. This lambs twin was our show ram lamb for 2014 and his details can be seen below as he is one of our reserves for the sale. This lamb is 5 Star for replacement and high 4 Star for Terminal indices.

Lot 171: H1-14-009

DOB: 17th January 2014 Sire: Kilronan Zanardi Dam Sire: Ballyhibben Joint Venture

This lamb is my favourite of the 2014 crop. A late born lamb I could not leave him at home. He carries himself with style and has muscle in all the right places. 5 Star ram for Terminal and high 4 Star ram for Replacement indices. This is a lamb that has everything.

Reserve Lamb: H1-14-012

DOB: 19th Janaury 2014 Sire: Kilronan Zanardi Dam Sire: Carnew Capture

A late born ram lamb that was our heaviest lamb at scanning in June. This lamb’s dam was our show ewe for 2014 she also produced a smashing ram in 2013 that nearly made it to this sale. This lamb is 4 Stars for both Terminal and Replacement Indices.

Reserve Lamb: H1-14-002

DOB: 31st December 2013 Sire: Ballyhibben Olympic Gold Dam Sire: Liscullane Dynamite

Twin to the first lamb listed, this lamb was our show Ram lamb for 2014. It was a difficult decision to leave this fella at home, and I think already having twins representing the flock in the Shearling section probably went against him. Same as his twin he is 5 Star for Replacement and high 4 Star for Terminal indices.

May 2014

May has been an excellent month on the farm with a nice amount of rain and sun to push grass growth to an excellent level. This month we culled the January lambers, this year proved a difficult task as the lambs are a cracking bunch and culling of the ram lambs is running at only 25% compared to our normal 50% target. We believe strict culling is necessary, as our own commercial flock is the pedigree flocks main customer this is an essential part of the link between the pedigree flock and commercial performance on the farm.

Sheep Ireland has scanned the January lambers and we wait with anticipation for the results. The lambs have really thrived over the past few weeks and we hope the early performance figures are replicated after the scanning results are included. We have also expanded our internal flock recording and use of technology to add Gene Marking to the mix. We have taken blood samples from our stock rams and commercial replacement breeding Lleyn rams. These samples have been sent to Lincoln University in New Zealand for Gene Marking to be completed in 4 categories. These categories are Foot Rot Resistance, Cold Tolerance, Muscling T-Max and Scrapie Testing. We aim to have results well before the sales season begins and provide the results to purchasers of lambs sired by the rams. The aim is to provide our customers comfort that our rams are well positioned to sire lambs that are high on foot rot resistance, good cold tolerance for outdoor lambing, carry T-Max muscling gene and are scrapie resistant. We hope to provide worm burden Gene Marking at some stage into the future, but access to this Marker test is limited at the moment.

We also completed our first ever show in the All Ireland qualifier which was held at the World Shearing championships in Gorey County Wexford. We brought 7 sheep, we were slightly concerned going that our sheep would be underfeed for showing. While our sheep were definitetly not as well feed as other competitors they showed well and even managed to take home 4 rosettes and qualify 4 sheep for the All Ireland. Zanardi got 3rd in a huge senior ram class, he was behind the All Ireland Senior & Shearling rams from last year and received many compliments from other breeders. Two shearling rams brought received 4th and 5th in their class, considering their age as April born against January shearlings I was very happy with this result. The senior ewe received 6th place in a very competitive class, our lambs looked well in the line-up but being born late January the show probably came a few weeks early for them. We have added a picture of the two senior classes to the gallery and if we get any of the other classes we will put them up there. Overall it was a hugely enjoyable day and I learnt a great deal of what is required for showing, it may not be my most favourite pastime but we will continue to support local shows.

The World Shearing was an excellent event overall and it was great to see so many Sheep specific stands in one place. We even managed to purchase a new sheep scales from Stanley Engineering to add to our Stanley Engineering Sheepeze. The next stop for the flock will be the sale season, as due to a wedding we cannot attend the All Ireland Charollais Championship.

If anyone wishes to purchase recorded rams direct from the farm please check our contact page for all the details.

Joe

April 2014

As I write this lambing is coming to an end on the farm, all the April pedigrees have lambed and 95% of the April commercials have lambed at this stage. The pedigrees have gone very well with just one lamb lost during lambing, but we had an unusual lambing in one way. With the exception of one ram lamb all other April pedigree lambs are ewes. We are not down beat in anyway way as we had a good run of rams in January lambers. All these ewe lambs are by Lisfuncheon Drico and look to be an exceptional bunch, and exactly what we want to push the flock forward. The commercial lambing went exceptionally well this year, and the weather came good just at the right time to facilitate our outside lambing set-up. The flock lambed at an incredible rate this year with 95% lambed down within 17 days, the ewes and lambs are all out now on fresh grass and looking well.

Another positive over recent weeks has been the factory hogget price. We have provided ICM Camolin with over 200 hoggets since the beginning of March and the increase in price was greatly appreciated after such a wet winter. The hoggets topped out at €141.40 with an average around €137, a great result after feeding them over the winter. The aim this year to sow Tyfon in some reseed and reduce the amount of concentrate feed the our lambs prior to sale. We normally have 50% of our lambs sold off grass prior to feeding, with the introduction of Tyfon the aim is substantially increase this figure this year.

As previously mentioned we have decided to show this year, something we have avoided previously but hopefully it will prove to be a worthwhile exercise. We have picked seven sheep for our show team, we are a little concerned they are not feed enough for show but we will give it a go and see how it works out. The team are Kilronan Zanardi as senior ram, Lisfuncheon Drico & H1-13-009 as shearling rams, H1-14-002 for the the ram lamb class, D32-11-003 senior ewe, A54-13-060 shearling ewe and H7-14-007 in the ewe lamb class. There were many other quality ram lambs and shearlings we can show, and may make the decision to show these in alternative shows during the year.

Sheep Ireland also provided early evaluations of January lambs to assist in culling decisions. We are delighted with the early results on the lambs with all ram lambs bar one being 5 and 4 STAR for Terminal index and all except two 5 and 4 STAR for the maternal index. Considering that 40% of the lambs are 5 STAR across the board for all traits, it is proof that our target of high index easy lambing rams is working. We hope as the new figures for the shearling rams come through they will be as successful, especially for H1-13-009 who has over 40 progeny now in the Sheep Ireland database from being used in CPT last year.

We look forward to seeing people at the shows over the next few months and please keep an eye on the gallery as we add photos as the flock develops

February 2014

February has been a busy time on the farm, it has been a terrible wet time added to by some bad news about the factory we supply our commercial lambs.

At the end of January it was announced that Kepak were reviewing their operations in Hacketstown Carlow. It was announced on February 16th that operations at Hacketstown would cease on March 6th 2014. We have been supplying Kepak Hacketstown with over 1,000 lambs annually for more than a decade. The news brought great sadness to us as we got to know many staff members and agents over the years and are very dissappointed that an alternative to closure could not be found. We are now in discussions with alternative plants to supply our Bord Bia quality assured lambs to, and we wish all the good people we got to know over the years the best for their futures.

On a brighter note February was scanning time for the April lambers. The scanning rate was a very satisfactory 1.82% (including empties), with the 12 remaining pedigrees that are in lamb scanning with 24 lambs (3 triplets, 6 twins and 3 singles). These 12 ewes are all in lamb to Lisfuncheon Drico as Zanardi was used on our commercial ewes for April lambing. Unfortunately we had 2 empties in the pedigree April lambers, one young shearling and the other a 9 year old Rutland ewe. We only had 5 empties across the commercials, which represents an empty rate of less than 1%. We look forward to lambing kicking off end of March, even though a very busy time of year it is very enjoyable.

The January lambs are developing very well, especially considering the desperate weather since they were all born. Few different lambs are catching our eye, including a lovely ram lamb by Ballyhibben Olympic Gold and one of the triplet ram lambs by Lisfuncheon Drico. The set of triplets are all being raised by their mother and she is doing a lovely job with the 3 of them. Kilronan Zanardi continues to breed really correct sheep and again have some lovely lambs by him this year. We are so delighted with how Kilronan Zanardi has breed over the past two years we hope to retain a ram by him this year rather than purchase another stock ram. We have been looking for a breeding type to focus on since founding the flock, and Zanardi is breeding exactly the type of Charollais we like as commercial farmers. It is yet to be decided if it will be a 5 STAR ram from the 12 hogget's we kept from last year or a 5 STAR lamb from this year's crop, once their figures become available a decision will be made.

A new Snacker was purchased this year to feed all the ewes outside. The snacker is a Swaledale engineering snacker and is proving a very good purchase only two weeks after delivery. A photo of the snacker has been added to our 'On the Farm' photo album.

Finally the world shearing competition is coming to Gorey Wexford in May 2014. The Irish Charollais Sheep Society is planning to have an All-Ireland qualifying show on Saturday 24th May. We have never shown as we see ourselves as primarily a commercial flock. This year to help promote the breed and flock we will attend 2/3 shows, commencing with the shearing in May. Please come up and say hello and talk about sheep with us and provide us encouragement, considering we will be complete novices to showing all encouragement will be appreciated.

We wish everyone lambing in March / April all the best and look forward to meeting as many Sheep people as possible in the time after lambing at shows and sales.

January 2014 Lambing time

Decision was made earlier in 2013 to lamb ewes in January 2014. Considering the tight turnaround of ewes previously lambed in April 2013 nineteen ewes were identified as in good shape for breeding in August. The ewes were allowed to cycle twice to keep the lambing period tight as possible. Thirteen of the ewes went in lamb within this period, an excellent result considering the challenges involved changing lambing pattern of the flock. With the two ewes bought in lamb we had fifteen ewes due to lamb in January 2014. The remainder of the flock to lamb in April consists of twelve ewes and two of the January born ewe lambs purchased in the autumn sales, these are all in lamb to Lisfuncheon Drico.

As writing this all of the ewes have lambed with twenty three lambs on the ground, eight ewe lambs and fifteen ram lambs. This is an excellent return we are extremely excited about some of the lambs already, and looking forward to watching them grow through the spring. The final ewe to lamb a Wind Swept six year old ewe lambed a lovely ram lamb by Kilronan Zanardi. We will add pictures to the gallery as lambs develop and people can track their favourites through the year.

The commercial flock and remaining pedigrees are pencilled in for scanning first weekend in February; we wait with anticipation for scanning results and the busy time of the main lambing in April. Last year lambs which were chosen to be over wintered continue to develop with the twelve rams maturing nicely, and sixteen ewes continuing to being monitored and accessed on the possibility of being added to the flock.

Finally we took semen from Lisfuncheon Drico in December 2013 and a limited amount may be made available for sale in 2014.

November2013: New Additions and breeding time

The Irish Charollais Sheep Society Female sale was held on October 26th 2013, and on the same day production sales held for A17 Bolinaspect and D29 Blackhill flocks. We purchased four sheep on the day, two ewe lambs and two in lamb ewes, pictures of all four have been added to the gallery.

The two ewe lambs were both from the Liscullane Flock A91 of Eamon Quinlivan and from a proven female line within the very successful flock. A91-13-043 lot 33 was placed fourth in the pre-sale show and was our pick of lambs on the day; she is by Beechview Knockout out of a Harmby Moor Capelo dam. A91-13-017 lot 44 was placed fifth in the pre-sale show and a superbly correct sheep; she is by Lisfuncheon High King out of a Ringclare Dynamite dam. Lisfuncheon High King is by our former stock ram Southam Valley and we are delighted to purchase this bloodline. Both these ewe lambs have been put out with Lisfuncheon Drico to lamb hopefully in April.

The two ewes were both purchased from the A17 Bolinaspect flock of Sarah O'Neill, the stock on show at this production sale was excellent and a tribute to Sarah. The first lot purchased was A17-12-031; this shearling is by Liscullane Dynamite and out of a Powerview dam sired by Elmwick Eagle Hills. The second ewe a proven three shear ewe also by Liscullane Dynamite, out of a Ringclare dam sired by Ringclare Flyer. Both of these ewes are in lamb to Ballyhibben Olympic Gold B3-12-003 and due January 1st 2014. Ballyhibben Olympic Gold is by Beechlodge Honourable Bid out of a Castellau Figurehead daughter, he was champion ram lamb and Reserve Supreme Champion at the ICSS premier sale in 2012. We now have lambs due from both of the last two champion ram lambs in the ICSS premier sales; we cannot wait to see what these ewes produce.

November 9th was the day of the Lisfuncheon A54 and Kilbarry D82 production sales in Roscrea. We headed down to the sale with great anticipation to see the stock available from two great flocks. We were not disappointed with some outstanding sheep on show, the pen of ewe lambs from the Lisfuncheon flock was easily some of the best pens of sheep I've ever seen from one breeder. Prior to the sale as we always do we marked the catalogue according to breeding lines that sparked our interest, this would then be followed up with what looked good on the day. We had six lambs marked from Lisfuncheon and added two more to the list that day, honestly the pens were so strong we would have been happy to bring any home.

The first lamb we were interested in was a full sister to Lisfuncheon Limited Edition, sire of our stock ram Lisfuncheon Drico. We lost out on this lamb at €900 being the under bidders, we are still disappointed to not have gone further. The next lot we had listed was lot 93 one of the additions from reviewing the pens, we bought this lamb A54-13-033 and are delighted with our purchase. The next two lots 94 and 95 were twins and full sisters to Lisfuncheon Princes All Ireland Supreme Champion 2012 and 2013. These two lots raised considerable interest in the ring and we were delighted to buy lot 95 A54-13-060, and equally delighted that one of our companions for the day fellow Carlow breeder Eddie Malone of the F56 Hollybank flock bought lot 94. The next lot that we were interested in was lot 114 A54-13-007, her twin brother was our second choice at this years premier sale after Drico. We were delighted to also buy this superbly sized ewe lamb. The final lot were interested in was lot 120, again we had admired greatly her twin at the premier this year and he was purchased by the famous A6 Saddle Hill Flock. We again missed out on this lot being the under bidders, all in was a very satisfying day purchasing three outstanding ewe lambs whose pictures are up in the gallery.

The commercial flocks breeding season also started November 3rd, when the rams went out. The rams used this year on the commercials are Kilronan Zanardi, Deerpark Empowerment, H1-13-004 a five star April born lamb picked picked from this year's crop to be retained for commercial use, four full brothers by Southam Valley, one shearling by Deerpark Empowerment, three rams purchased from Simon Brown A2 flock over past few years, and two Lleyn rams one from Simon Brown and the other from Michael Keegan. Pictures of these rams from the day they were all let out are posted in the gallery.

Finally we hope to take semen from both stock rams in December and a limited amount will be available for sale in 2014.

October 2013

As we gear up for the main breeding season for the commercial flock and the remaining pedigrees, we were contacted by Sheep Ireland. They requested the use of H1-13-009 for CPT (Central Progeny Test) in Lyons Estate, it was explained he was picked due to his production figures of €1.05 placing him second for production across the Charollais lambs of 2013. The lamb is by our stock ram Kilronan Zanardi (F33-12-007) and out of a superbly breed Deerpark ewe by Lowerye Impressive. The lambs back breeding on his dam’s side is full of famous stock sires from the charollais breed, such as Grimston George, Scratchmere Senator, Highway Mr Softie and Arjane Master Mac. It is hoped this lamb and his twin H1-13-010 will be offered for sale in 2014, along with some other very high indexed 5 star rams after Kilronan Zanardi.

The CPT will involve semen being taken from the ram and used on approx 60 commercial ewes, from which all data will be recorded similar to LambPlus. We were delighted to offer the ram lamb for use and hope such a young lamb works well for the test. It is superb to see such testing take place for commercial flocks as it is badly needed to drive the sheep industry forward.

As the breeding season is nearly upon us, the rams will go out with the commercial ewes and remaining pedigrees on 3rd November. Two home breed shearlings have been retained for use in the commercial flock, one by Southam Valley and the other by Deerpark Empowerment. The Southam Valley sired ram is the fourth son of A54-08-063 to be retained for use in our commercial flock or my fathers. Unfortunately we lost this ewe this year due to an accident, but do have three of her daughters in the flock. We hope to sell her last son H1-13-007 next year who is a 5 star production lamb; this will be the first and last sale of this brilliant commercial breeders offspring.

Other decisions made for this year’s breeding season are to try some of our young ram lambs which will be for sale as shearlings in 2014. We aim to use H1-13-004 on our commercial ewe lambs, this lamb is top 5% for production and 5 star overall. We also hope to purchase some January born top quality pedigree ewe lambs this year and breed them to H1-13-011, this is another top 5% production and 5 star overall lamb. This lamb and his sister H1-13-012 have been my favourites since lambing time and they continue to shine. We believe in breeding January born ewe lambs in their first year, their offspring are expected to perform in commercial flocks so they should perform to the same standards. Similarly our stock ram Kilronan Zanardi will earn his keep by running with commercial ewes in November, while Lisfuncheon Drico will run with the remaining April lambing Pedigrees.

Finally we hope to take semen from both stock rams in December and a limited amount will be available for sale in 2014. We wish everyone a good breeding season and hope this Indian summer continues for a while yet.

August 2013

At the Irish Charollais Premier sale on July 27th we were delighted to buy a new stock ram A54-13-002 from Eddie & Paul O'Gorman. The ram lamb was the supreme champion of the show and we paid €1,500 for him in the ring. The lambs sire is Lisfuncheon Limited Edition and his dam a Tullyear ewe by Knockychottaun Leprechaun. He is an incredible correct sheep with great length and muscle, he will be named Lisfuncheon Drico and we look forward with great anticipation to his lambs next year.

This year we have decided due to the level of work required at the April lambing time to lamb 19 ewes in January. This was a decision not taken lightly as we still intend to let our lambs develop as naturally as possible with a minimal of concentrate feeding. The 19 ewes were mated with Kilronan Zanardi and Lisfuncheon Drico on August 10th, with 11 to Zanardi and 8 to Drico. Two weeks later only one ewe repeated, so hopefully we are looking at a successful mating for our first time January lambing. Lisfuncheon Drico will go with the later lambing Pedigree ewes, while Kilronan Zanardi will go out with our commercials. Using our stock rams on our commercials is one way we can show our customers that the rams are fit to work with large numbers, Zanardi will be put in with 140 ewes alongside our previous stock ram Deerpark Empowerment. Deerpark Empowerment has numerous daughters coming through into the pedigree flock and the decision this year was made to use him solely on the commercials, he is an incredible powerful and muscular sheep which can be seen in his progeny.

We also picked the lambs to be carried over as shearlings this year, with 12 ram lambs identified. The LambPlus results after scanning also became available and we are extremely happy with our lambs. 11 of the ram lambs are 5 star or 4 star for production with high survival numbers as well, this is more than we expected. One ram lamb H1-13-009 returned results in the top 1% for production of €1.05 and will produce lambs 8 days quicker than the average. This lambs results have created excitement to see how he winters, and especially considering his twin H1-13-010 is also in the top 5% for the same traits.

We have registered 4 of the heaviest and best peforming ram lambs this year. This was done to offer customers the opportunity to purchase our best genetics prior to next year if they required a STAP eligible ram, but do not require them for heavy work this year. Details and prices are on our for sale page.