Breeding programme

At the beginning there have been two main breeds on the farm – East Friesian and Lacaune. The East Friesian is the highest milk producing sheep breed with the longest lactation period but they can be fragile – in other words, the Holstein Friesian equivalent of sheep.

The French Lacaune breedis seen as the Jersey cow of the sheep world, with high milk solids.

 

 

Unlike New Zealand, Ireland has no problem accessing European genetics of milk sheep and working with European counterparts like, for example, the Lacaune milk sheep, having very good milk yield.


 

The Lacaune milk sheep is a strong, medium-sized, resilient and adaptable, hornless sheep. Early maturity and vigorous, with good fertility, very good milk yield with very high content and a good carcass quality.

Weight buck: 80 – 100 kg
Mother Animal: 55 – 75 kg
FEATURES
Lactation duration 280 to 300 days
Milk production 300-600 kg milk at 6-8% fat and 4.5-6.5% protein
Fertility 150-200% first lambing at 12-15 months

A company in Ireland that has, for example,  a herd size of 1000 sheep can sell its entire sheep herd and convert it completely to dairy sheep within 2 years.
Medium and small farms between 200 and 300 animals are suitable for the sheep breeding. With a lactation  time of 5 years for the Lacaune sheep the  entire livestock has to  be replaced every  5 years.
The existing breeding programme, which has been successfully exercised during the last years and is welcomed by the local authorities, has shown stable good results. The program makes possible participation of large number of medium and small farms thanks to which the development of large pool of milking genetics in Ireland will be confidently realized within the next several years.