Teagasc BETTER Farm Open Day Brian Nicholson – Wednesday 26th July at 2pm

• Sheep Ireland would like to invite all LambPlus sheep breeders to the farm of Brian Nicholson next Wednesday 26th July. There will be a strong breeding aspect to this open day and Sheep Ireland personnel will be on hand to answer any queries from LambPlus members.
• Brian’s farm is located just 3km from the village of Johnstown in Co. Kilkenny. Johnstown itself is just off the M8 (Dublin to Cork) motorway, so the event will be very accessible.

Sheep Ireland Multibreed LambPlus Ram Sale 2017

Once again our ram sale will take place in Tullamore Mart on the fourth Saturday of August (26th August). The sale will commence at 12 noon and we expect a large sale entry. Sale entry letters have been circulated to all LambPlus breeders this week. The deadline for entries is Monday 14th August – this is to allow sufficient time to advertise the sale catalogue.

Sale entry criteria

• As has been the case each year since the beginning of this sale, various entry requirements are increasing year on year. The minimum accuracy% requirement has been increased from 30% to 35% and the minimum flock DQI (Data Quality Index) requirement is 60% (up from 50% in 2016). This increased entry criteria reflects the progress being made by performance recording breeders and also demonstrates Sheep Ireland commitment to offering the best possible genetic evaluations to ram buyers on the day of this sale.

Full entry criteria

• Ultrasound scanning – All rams must have been born in a flock that has ultrasonically scanned a proportion of their lambs for muscle and fat depth in 2017.
• €uro-Star Index & Accuracy % – All rams must have five €uro-Stars for either the Replacement or Terminal index and in conjunction with this five €uro-Stars requirement, the adjoining accuracy (Acc) % is required to be 35% or greater.
• Data Quality Index (DQI) – Breeders wishing to enter sheep in the sale must have a flock DQI of 60% or greater.
• Ram Inspection – All rams must be physically inspected, similar to any breed society sale. Sheep Ireland will carry out a thorough ram inspection on the day and will inspect all rams upon entry to the sale. Any sheep which in our opinion are unfit for breeding will be rejected immediately.

Premier Sale Catalogues

A number of sheep breeds are now preparing their ram sale catalogues for their annual Premier sales. These will be available on each breed society website in the coming days for each of the relevant breeds. The next major Premier sale taking place will be the Charollais Premier sale on Saturday 29th July. This catalogue can be viewed by clicking here. A sale of Hampshire Down sheep also takes place in Tullow on Tuesday 25th July – €uro-Star indexes for a number of Hampshire breeders will be available on the day of this sale.