Optimising nutritional management of high prolificacy sheep
Currently there is renewed opportunity in the sheep sector to enhance the productivity and profitability of the national sheep flock. This is driven by price increases, a new national breeding programme and the targets set out in Food Harvest 2020. Currently there are approximately 32,000 farmers engaged in sheep production nationally (NFS, 2010) with gross margins per ha comparing favourable to cattle enterprises. There is significant spare capacity in the national flock with an average weaning rate of only 1.37 lambs per ewe in the top 1/3 of Irish flocks (NFS, 2010), a figure which has remained more or less static for the last 50 years. Breeds now exist that can significantly increase this percentage, namely the Belclare (Hanrahan, 1994). This presents significant opportunity but also challenges relating to optimum stocking rate, grassland management, late pregnancy and early lactation nutrition and management of ewes rearing triplet lambs (Boland and Crosby, 2006). The stocking rate and grassland management aspects are to be addressed in a companion Walsh Fellowship application (Creighton et al.)
This project focuses on optimising nutritional management of the ewe during late pregnancy and early lactation. Additionally the grass intake and milk production capacity of Belclare ewes will be investigated to understand the maximum production capability of this ewe type.
The energy requirements of sheep are predominantly satisfied by grazed or conserved grass (90-95%) with the remainder coming from concentrate allocations during late pregnancy and early lactation. Recent on farm evidence suggests that Belclare cross ewes may not adhere to the traditional recommendations regarding BCS requirements at various times of the production cycle, with these animals capable of surviving at lower levels than traditional ewe breeds such as the Suffolk cross. These reports need to be verified under controlled research settings.