As well as being one of Cork’s best-known sheep farmers, Sean Dennehy is IFA sheep chairman of Cork Central and a member of the national sheep committee.
Sean and his wife Colette farm nearly 250 acres, which is owned and rented, in Shandangan, Carrigadrohid, which is in Cork’s Muskerry and Lee Valley regions. They have three children, Nicola (17), Laura (14) and Robert (11), who help with the day-to-day running of the farm.
Sean’s late father Jerry, who was a native of Rathmore, Co. Kerry, started farming in Carrigadrohid after returning from the US in 1966. Having initially farmed cattle, pigs and sheep, the Dennehy’s have been concentrating on sheep for a number of years now.
There are 920 breeding ewes, 250 ewe lambs, 40 rams and five teaser rams, not to mention a whole batch of spring born lambs, to be found on the farm at present. The breeding ewes are a mixture of Belclare and Suffolk, while the rams consist of Belclare, Suffolk, Texel and Welsh Lleyn. The lambs which aren’t kept as replacements are supplied to Macroom-based craft butcher Michael Twomey, with the surplus going to Kildare Chilling through factory agent Brendan Kelleher. Sean has a contract with his local butcher to supply 25 lambs per week, while he supplies his wool to Daniel Buckley in Millstreet.
“By selling our lambs locally, we can take satisfaction from the fact that we doing our bit for the local economy. I’m a firm believer in supporting the business community locally,” he says.
“It also allows local consumers to sample what is being produced right here in the Lee Valley. Irish lamb is the best in the world and we want as many people as possible to enjoy it.”
The Dennehy’s are coming off the back of another busy lambing season which began on February 17 and finished on April 20. About 150 ewes lambed every week, with many of them having twins and triples.
“We’ve had a reasonable lambing season, but the weather and slow grass growth made the lambing very difficult,” the affable sheep farmer reports.
“The weather always has a big bearing, especially when the ewes are lambing outdoors. When the weather is bad, it can lead to some losses.
“The health and condition of the ewes is another important element in having a good lambing season. In any given year, one of the most important tasks carried out pre-lambing is scanning the ewes. The ewes will then be fed according to litter size.
“Ewes with single lambs are fed on a restricted grass diet to reduce the prospect of the lamb being too big at birth. Ewes having twins get a flat rate feed of half a kilo of concentrates, and grass ad-lib, in the last four weeks prior to lambing. Barren ewes are identified and re-scanned at a later date. If any barren ewes are found at that second scanning, they are sold to the factory.”
He continues: “Twins are lambed outsides and singles and triplets are lambed indoors. We’re geared for sheep on this farm, except for housing which is minimal for the size of the flock. We have three loose sheds for housing as well as a lambing penning shed.”
The Dennehy family has been breeding sheep since 1984. Nowadays, the flock is divided between Belclare and Suffolk cross ewes. This year, the main flock scanned nearly two lambs per ewe and out of 250 ewe lambs, 200 proved in lamb. Nearly all of these are rearing lambs at present.
When he’s not busy on the farm, Sean is fighting the cause of local sheep farmers through is involvement with the IFA’s National Sheep Committee. Sean is in his third year as sheep chairman of Cork Central and attends about 20 meetings a year at local and national level. It’s a role he enjoys, despite the current challenges and difficulties facing Irish sheep farmers.
“The IFA Sheep Committee is committed to campaigning for more support for the industry. Compared to the higher profile dairy and beef sectors, we are small, yet sheep meat exports still contribute nearly €300 million to the Irish economy.”
At national and EU level, the IFA Sheep Committee lobbies on behalf of all sheep farmers on the issues of critical importance to members such as incomes, lamb prices and sheep support. The priority issues for the Committee are: strong lamb prices; adequate sheep support payments; a fairer system of EU sheep policy; a positive hill sheep policy involving GLAS and ANC payments; strong opposition to lamb imports under WTO. The national chairman is John Lynksey from Co. Mayo, with Peter Shields from Co. Louth vice-chair.
“We have been lobbying the Government since last June for a sheep support payment of €20 per ewe for active producers and we had success recently when securing funding for a €10 per ewe payment and restoration of ANC payments to pre-2008 levels, the whole package being worth €50 million. We also got sheep fencing re-included in TAMS II. It was a team effort with all the members of the IFA sheep committee lobbying their local TDs and highlighting the need for a sheep support payment.
“Something I have a major gripe with relates to the weight of spring lambs going into factories. It would make a big different to producers if this was raised from 20kg to 21kg. Strong lamb prices and increased weight are essential to restore profitability to the sheep sectors and the IFA will continue to put pressure on processors and retailers to return maximum prices from the market back to producers.”
Sean Dennehy
IFA Sheep Chairman of Cork Central,
Shandangan,
Carrigadrohid,
Co. Cork.
Telephone: 087 8103406
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 5, June 2016
