Based in Kilcoagh, Donard, Co. Wicklow, Paddy and Fionnuala Tyrell are suckler and sheep farmers, calving a herd of commercial sucklers and a flock of both pedigree and commercial ewes with the help of their four children; Jenny, Katie, Emily, and John.
Agriland recently paid a visit to the Tyrell’s farm to find out more about their farming system and some of the challenges they face on their Wicklow hill farm.
The farm has 25 sucklers and a flock of 370 ewes. Paddy and Fionnuala’s children have been developing a flock of pedigree Suffolk ewes over the past number of years and they sell their rams at the autumn sales at Blessington Mart.
The farm is located over 1,300ft above sea level and the higher altitude of the farm can delay grass growth in the spring.
Both Katie and Jenny study agriculture in college with Katie studying at University College Dublin (UCD) and Jenny studying at South East Technological University, formerly Waterford Institute of Technology.
Sheep
The ewes in the commercial flock are primarily Cheviot and Suffolk-cross ewes. Lambing begins on the farm around February 20, and continues throughout March, April and into May.
“We prefer to spread out the lambing season because it’s easier to manage the bigger numbers of ewes,” Paddy explained.
All twin-bearing ewes are lambed indoors and ewes carrying singles are lambed outdoors.
“Outdoor lambing works as long as the weather is good,” said Paddy.
The home farm consists of approximately 115ac and Paddy said that while the land is dry, much of it had to be reclaimed over the years.
Lambs are sold as stores from June to November. “The better lambs would be 45kg and the lightest of the lambs sold would be 35kg,” said Paddy.
“Replacement ewe lambs are kept and bred as hoggets to lamb at two-years-old.”
Suckler farming
A total of 25 suckler cows are currently on the farm. Heifers are served to an easy-calving artificial insemination (AI) Limousin bull and a Charolais stockbull is used on second-calvers and cows.
Heifer weanlings are generally sold in the autumn and replaced with bull weanlings. These weanling bulls are then sold at a year-and-a-half-old as store bullocks.
Paddy said that with bovine tuberculosis (TB) issues in the Wicklow region, the number of cows on the farm could drop in the event of a TB outbreak and the farm has had to change its management strategy due to this concern.
TB is a major issue in the region. “We had no cases of bovine TB on this farm for 27 years and then from from 2012 to 2017, we had over 130 reactors,” said Paddy.
“TB has made us have to rethink our entire management strategy with the sucklers,” Fionnuala added.
“We had more cows in the past but since TB has become an issue in the region, our numbers have dropped.
“Our plan was originally to expand the suckler herd. We lost a number of cows here one year to TB and bought in heifers to try rebuild numbers, but TB was much too prevalent in the area at the time and the heifers we bought in went down with TB as well,” she added.
“We didn’t join the Beef Data Genomics Programme (BDGP) the last time because the year we were due to join the scheme, five of the seven cows we were asked to genotype went down in the TB test so we decided not to join the scheme.
“Over the years, the uncertainty of TB has always left things uncertain for the cattle and hard to plan. The farm is the main source of income here and there’s a lot dependent on it.”
Deer fencing was erected around part of the farm which Paddy noted has been a huge help in reducing incidents of TB and keeping deer off the land.
Commenting on the plans for the future of the Wicklow farm, Paddy said he hopes to continue at a similar stocking level and continue to improve the quality of the livestock being sold from the farm.