The sun was shining as one of the biggest sheep events of the year took place last Saturday. Thousands flocked to Athenry to what proved to be a great event. The event accommodated those looking for technical information on sheep production while also catering as a family day out. It gave us a chance to meet with some of our pedigree breeders involved in LambPlus. While also meeting new faces and informing them of the work that Sheep Ireland are doing and what can be achieved by purchasing a performance recorded ram.

Sheep Ireland Demo

We ran a demo on the day which compared the progeny of 5-star and 1-star rams. It was evident that by simply looking at these lambs that farmers were unable to see a distinction between the two until they had been weighed. Progeny of 5-star sires were 2.5-3.0kg heavier at weaning time. See a video of Kevin McDermott explaining the demo below.

Sheep Ireland Stand

At the Sheep Ireland stand we were on hand to speak with farmers about any queries they may have had. We were emphasizing the importance of buying €uroStarred rams and where exactly farmers can find them.

A few places are:

• LambPlus Sale (Saturday August 25th 2018) – last year over 300 5 Star rams were catalogued
• Ram Search – allows farmers to search by breed, county, age & EuroStar Index.
• LambPlus Guide – lists all LambPlus breeders in Ireland and is sent to over 10,000 farmers each year.

We had a survey for farmers to fill out on the day which highlighted some very interesting results.

A few to note were:

• When asked when purchasing a ram, how much emphasis would you place on the €uroStar indexes? Almost 50% stated that €urostars are just one of many things I look at.
• 53% of respondents source rams at specialist ram sales with 49% buying ram lambs.