Northern Ireland NSA members enjoy trip to Wales

A group of NSA members from NSA Northern Ireland region spent three days in Wales this week (Monday 19th - Wednesday 21st May) visiting sheep farmers.

First stop was the Dunbia processing plant at Llanybydder. The plant supplies more than 1.5 million lambs a year to markets throughout Europe and employs around 600 people. In 2013 the company invested £12 million in an extensive update to modernise the factory.

Sion and Claire Williams, the young couple from Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, who hosted NSA Welsh Sheep 2013 and were presented with the NSA Cymru/Wales Young Achievement Award in the same year then welcomed the tour to their farm. The couple run a mixed flock of 1,200 Mule, Texel Mule and Aberdale ewes with 1,400 Aberfield embryos implanted to establish their own flock of Aberfield ewes. Their 100% focus on maximising lamb production off grass and kilograms of lamb sold per ewe is a lesson to everyone.

The second day of the tour took in the farm of Keith Williams, the current Farmers Weekly Sheep Farmer of the Year at Llandrindod Wells. Keith runs 800 Welsh Mule, Texel and Lleyn ewes in Hendy, Llandrindod Wells. He operates a rotational grazing system and focuses on silage quality to minimise concentrate use. Sheep are now grazed on rotation and generally receive about 1.6ha a day, with an average rotation length of 15 days. Keith believes grass quality has subsequently improved, allowing him to generally finish off grass and avoid supplementing ewes. Cost of production sits at 117p/kg, with a profit of £1.92/kg across beef and sheep.

In the afternoon the group were guests at the National Phenomics Centre. The centre, which features a state of the art automated greenhouse – the only one of its kind in the UK and one of only a few in the world – enables researchers to study plants in a dynamic non-destructive manner that has not hitherto been practical. With the capacity to house up to 850 plants on a series of computer-controlled conveyor belts, scientists will be able to apply different environmental regimes to individual plants as they study the influence of individual genes. This provides the capacity to study entire populations of plants and could be applied to solving problems in plant breeding and agronomy, as well as undertaking basic biological research and training.

Then it was on to Capel Dewi where Dewi Jones of Innovis showed the vistors round the various sheep composite breeds and explained their stategy for the future. Innovis’ commitment to research and development has enabled them to build upon highly successful and established sheep breeding programmes. The result is a selection of both maternal and terminal sire lines suited to meet the individual needs and requirements of the modern sheep farmer.

The final day of the tour began with a visit to the Perkins Family at Dinas Island Pembrokeshire, who won the 2012 Farmers Weekly Sheep Farmer of the Year award.With his father, Neil farms 600 acres at Dinas Island in Pembrokeshire, where he lives with his wife and three children.The farm is two-thirds productive grassland with the remainder in environmental management. The breeding policy is to keep costs low, aiming for an average of a £1/kg of lamb produced and achieving 150kg of lamb per acre, with the aim that the ewe should rear her lambs to her own weight by weaning. Ewes are teased and tupped at a ratio of one ram to 100 ewes, lambs are all recorded at birth, weaned at 12 weeks onto the best forage and sold within the same year of birth. Neil keeps on top of performance by using genetics and recording.

Our last visit of our trip was to sheep consultant Catherine Nakielny. Catherine worked with Innovis and industry consultants after studying Animal Science at Aberystwyth and completing a PhD on breeding sheep for resistance to roundworms. On the family farm in Talley, Catherine has been involved with increasing production levels over the last four years.She is a member of the NSA Welsh Committee, represents Wales on the NSA UK Policy and Technical Committee, is County Chairman of Carmarthenshire FUW and Chair of the FUW’s Animal Health and Welfare Committee.

Edward Adamson, NSA Northern Ireland Regional Development Officer and trip organiser, says: “After a hectic three days those on the trip returned home with a lot of information gained from all they had seen. Good management and production efficiency has to be the sheep farmers goal if they are to succeed and this visit to Wales certainly allowed all to see this in practice.”