Sheep farmers from 7 countries gathered in Spain
Sheep farmers from seven countries held their annual transnational event in Spain. Sheep producers from the UK, Ireland, France, Romania, Spain, Italy, plus Turkey joined the SheepNet to discuss a series of initiatives that can increase the productivity of their flocks, reports The Scottish Farmer magazine.
76 ideas, including some presented by partners from Australia and New Zealand, were discussed during the workshop and the top five were: Water supply to multiple lambing pens from one source to reduce labour (Ireland); Use of electronic ID recording tool to improve productivity (Turkey); Moving gate to put sheep through the race without stressing them (Australia); Dealing with enlarged teats by taping the normal teat to encourage lambs to suck the large one (Ireland); A barrier to prevent lambs from jumping in the feed trough (France).
The main goal of the project is to increase EU's self-sufficiency in sheep meat and to reduce the imports. "The EU is only 85% self-sufficient in sheep meat and is the largest importer of sheep meat worldwide. An increase in EU ewe productivity by 0.1 lambs reared per ewe joined would increase self-sufficiency in sheep meat to 92%", explained Dr Claire Morgan-Davies, from Scotland's Rural College. The next SheepNet event is to be hosted by Italy in November 2019.
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