Making a living from the land

It’s a busy time of year on the farm of Tomás O’Toole which is located in the scenic village of Moyard, 10 kilometres outside of Clifden. The calving season has finished and the majority of lambing now also completed.

Tomás runs both hill and lowland sheep enterprises alongside a suckler herd selling followers as weanlings. The farm consists of 40 hectares of green ground, 13 hectares of enclosed hill and 29 hectrares of commonage.

The lowland flock consists of 90 Suffolk X and Mules: they have finished lambing over the last number of weeks with the focus now on the hill flock which consists of 70 Black Face Mountain and Lanark ewes.

This is the first year that Tomás has split the ewes into two separate flocks. Previously both hill and lowland flocks would lamb at the same time.

This change has come about due to Tomás joining the Teagasc BETTER Farm Sheep Programme which supports the adoption of a number of key areas such as grassland management, breeding and production methods which are implemented into a plan for the farm.

Splitting the flock means that Tomás can better utilise the commonage and hill ground that he has on the farm for use for the hill flock while keeping green ground available near the home block for the lowland flock.

In the programme Tomás now records data such as weight and condition score of ewes at breeding, recording weights of lambs at birth and again at weaning. This data helps Tomás to see what ewes are performing and information on lambs that are produced on the farm.

A key element of farmers selected to participate in the programme is that they are enthusiastic about development of their sheep enterprise and that they are open to change in order to achieve better financial returns and labour efficiency for the farm.  Tomás is an ideal candidate for the programme as he is a young farmer with lots of new ideas and enthusiasm to further improve the farm.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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