Introduction of the Dorset Breed Makes Significant and Positive Impact
The introduction of the Dorset breed has made a significant and positive impact on the sheep enterprise of the Maguire family farm, near Collon, Co.Meath.
Paul Maguire, his son Mark and Jack Dunne
A visit to Paul Maguire and his family clearly shows the extent of their enthusiasm for the Dorset and as he explains his management system he shows how he is using genetics to boost economics. Paul and his brother farm over 600 acres, the beef cattle and sheep are managed separately, with Paul's interest being the sheep. Paul's wife Mary, 15year old son Mark and 13year old daughter Olive are all involved on the farm, Mark is clearly passionate about farming and already manages his own small flock of Jacob sheep.
The Maguires run approx 1400 crossbred ewes, 1100 commercial ewes are run with Texel, Vendeen and Dorset rams and a batch of 300 ewes (200 mules and 100 Lleyn cross ewes) are bred exclusively with Dorset rams with all females retained in the flock as breeding replacements. In this way within the next few years all the breeding ewes will be at least half Dorset and Paul believes this provides a prolific, hardy, early lambing ewe and a lambing percentage of 1.69 bears this out. Although Paul jokes that he hates hard work it is evident that the flock is extremely well managed and good moblie handling facilities enable him to work efficiently where ever necessary.
The aim is to have lambs ready for the factory on a weekly basis throughout the year, going directly to the plant in Navan, so although there will be a massive variation in price throughout the year it is the average that is important. To provide this constant supply of finished lambs there are batches from the beginning of December to April. The natural out of season lambing attribute of the Dorset makes them an ideal choice for this type of system (Paul aims to have six crops of lambs in a five year period) The ewes for December, January and February lambing are all sponged at a cost of five Euros per ewe and Paul has noted a success rate of 65% with other breeds, but using half bred Dorsets the rate rises to 90% which has obvious economic advantages. The hoggets were not sponged last year with natural conception, all were in lamb with a percentage of 1.79 and out of 200 there were only 12 sets of triplets.
Group of ewes and lambs
All ewes are lambed indoors, there is a large lambing shed on the home farm which can accommodate up to 450 ewes. Most of the sheep are located at an out farm a few miles away. There are few lambing problems and the lambs are lively quickly up and sucking. The ewes are fed a small amount 4 - 6 pre lambing, the amount determined by the number of lambs carried. At turnout the ewes are not fed concentrates, the early born lambs will be creep fed from around six weeks old and sold straight off the ewes. The later lambs will be weaned at dosing, usually around 14 weeks and will only be fed after weaning. Paul believes in proactive rather than reactive sheep management. He vaccinates all stock using Heptavac P.
Initially Paul found it difficult to source Dorset rams locally as there were not many pedigree breeders in Ireland. As commercial sheep farmers have become more aware of the benefits of using the Dorset, there have been many enquiries to breeders in the north about importing stock. In response to this, the N.I Dorset Sheep Breeders Club is holding an export sale in Hilltown Livestock Market on Friday 17th August 2012. All sheep at the sale will be available for immediate export and there will be classes for ram lambs, shearling rams, ewe lambs and shearling ewes. Showing begins at 12noon with the sale following at 1.30pm. The N.I. Club are indebted to MSD for their generous sponsorship of this event. For a Catalogue or further information about the sale contact club secretary on 0044 7841 746 705.
Dorset Cross Lambs