Sheep Ireland in conjunction with Teagasc held our seventh and final Sheep Breeding Workshop of 2019 on Wednesday 31st July, on the farm of Denis & Shane Carroll in Killarney, County Kerry. Denis & Shane Carroll run a commercial sheep farm with 170 breeding ewes as well as some drystock and milks 67 dairy cow. Denis & Shane retain approximately 35 replacement ewes. These farmers have a mixture of lowland and hill genetics and are building towards a closed flock. When purchasing ram, these farmers focus on high genetic merit animals with high €urostars focusing on Charollais, Rouge and Belclare – 6 rams used at mating in 2018 – which is excellent use of a ram team. Denis & Shane’s breeding ewes are a Scotch X Belclare. Denis has been a long standing member of the Ring of Kerry Quality Lamb Group. The importance of a breeding strategy when sourcing a high index ram was the take home message at the workshops. Sheep Ireland and Teagasc gave presentations on €urostar evaluations and the benefits of using them, how to use the evaluations to promote your farm business, maximising the use of EID, flock health, ewe and ram NCT and bio-Security on the farm. There was an great turnout for this event with up to 90 attendees.

The event began at 7pm and catered for both pedigree ram breeders and commercial sheep farmers, with tailored material for both groups.