As part of Agri Aware’s Farming Through the Seasons programme, Mrs McDaid’s class participated in a webinar with farmer Aoife Cleary. Aoife is a young sheep farmer from Co. Roscommon. She brought us on a virtual tour of her farm and explained what happens on the farm during spring. The webinar was very informative and we even saw some lambs being born! Jamie, Casey and Conor wrote about what we learned and Jamie even brought in some photographs of the animals on his farm!
On Friday 19th April we had a zoom call with Aoife Cleary. She is a farmer and she has 540 ewes. She works on the farm with her dad.
In January, all the ewes are sheared. They are sheared because they would fit more sheep in the shed and they have bigger lambs. Then the wool is sold.
In spring, lambing season starts. 540 sheep lambed this year! Approximately 900 lambs were born. There were many sets of triplets and five ewes had four lambs each! The head is cleaned once the lamb is born so they can breathe.
Some lambs are tube fed. They are tube fed because one ewe can only feed two lambs. The lambs are out in the field after one or two days if the weather is OK.
There are no cameras on the farm. The farmer has three sheds. Most lambs are born on their own but around 100 ewes needed help.
Aoife and her dad also have 32 cows and a dog called Spot.
By Jamie, Casey and Conor
