Steven Johnston – EasyCare Sheep Ireland

My sheepy journey – always learning.

In the early 90’s I undertook PhD studies to investigate the effects of genotype and nutrition on lamb production. This involved assessing the performance of Greyface and Suffolk Cheviot ewes and Suffolk and Dutch Texel rams. This was my first experience observing the power of genetics as a force for change. I also quickly realised the needs for real data to ensure that the animals we create remain truly functional and do not become ornaments and playthings.

Following a short stint with Signet I joined the local Department for Agriculture in Northern Ireland and quickly established myself as the Sheepy person, supporting pedigree breeders and commercial lamb producers to develop their businesses. I worked closely with local pedigree clubs and the NSA, setting up development groups and monitor farms to aid knowledge transfer. I enjoyed the banter, discussing the finer but ultimately irrelevant points of many a sheep. As with most sheepy scholars I also made the pilgrimage to New Zealand and yes it had a profound effect, but not in the way I had probably expected. I didn’t come home with any great technical revelation, but instead my observations of the people, their self-reliance and their can-do attitude gave me the courage to challenge the normal and that I did.

I focussed on the basic role of the lamb producer, to turn grass into quality human-edible protein and started to develop my Easycare philosophy. Everyone’s journey through life is unique and the beliefs they develop are personal but it is good to share our experiences and debate and challenge our thinking. I always had ample opportunity to be challenged by my students when lecturing at college and farmers at meetings and open days. It is also very important to understand that we are always in a provisional state of understanding and our views and beliefs not only can change but must change with more knowledge and evidence. That is the rational for the journey and I am conscious that life is about the journey, not the destination.

As I have highlighted to students over the years, the most important part of a sheep farm is:

The farmer: Develop a system you can cope with both physically and mentally and that gives you pleasure and fun to run.
Followed by the grass (and yes good fences): sheep are grazers so look after your soil and grow and utilise as much grass as cheaply as possible
Then a flock health plan: don’t allow disease to erode your profits and give you loads of extra work
Good handling facilities: as only fools and horses work, and then finally
The sheep.

So in a nutshell my thinking is “The sheep you work with should be the product of the system you enjoy operating.”

My sheep

The first EasyCare sheep arrived at the Johnston holding in early 2008 from the Welsh family farm, Mossfennan. I had the pick of their ewes and selected a bunch of 12 mixed aged ewes from five different bloodlines based on performance figures. These 12 went into a 3 acre quarantine field where they stayed for 6 months and reared 23 lambs (see picture 1). The ewes had not been scanned.

These ewes were supplemented during the initial few years with other Wilshire cross EasyCare and EasyCare ewes derived from genetics from the Ballycoose flock of fellow Northern Ireland Easycare stalwart Campbell Tweed. To this day I operate a family breeding system having only sourced 8 rams from outside the flock, three of which were sons of rams I bred. The main reason for sourcing these rams is to create genetic linkage with other flocks performance recording through Sheep Ireland. The pool of performance recorded EasyCare ewes on the Sheep Ireland system probably numbers 4000 annually and Sheep Ireland also provides us across breed data with breeding values for methane coming in 2024. Pictures 2 and 3 show current stock, probably demonstrating my preference for long, hair type sheep.

My interest in measuring things meant that for me as the farmer my system would have to focus on collecting data, utilising the skills of the folks at Sheep Ireland to turn the data into information in the form of breeding values which I could then combine with my knowledge of breeding programmes and what I observed on the ground to make the right breeding decisions.

It is always difficult to try to ride too many horses at the one time and decisions do end up a compromise, especially when there are different bloodlines to maintain. My most difficult, frustrating, annoying, challenging and stressful job each year is selecting the 10 or so ram lambs I use. That number may seem excessive to most as I am mating 200 ewes and 50 ewe lambs but it does allow me to maintain diversity and manage inbreeding in my own flock and the flocks of many repeat customers who trust me to provide them with genetics which will perform. To this I will add that Sheep Ireland have an on-line inbreeding checker which has helped immensely with managing my mating decisions.

So how is the journey going?

I am still on the journey so that is good, a combination of belief and bloody mindedness, but I am enjoying it more than ever as momentum for the EasyCare breed builds. It is always rewarding to sell breeding rams and hear positive feedback and it is encouraging that the number of sales increase year on year. Genetics from my flock have been sold throughout the UK and Ireland and through others further afield. My journey probably mirrors the recent journey of acceptance for the EasyCare Breed, it is through the resistance phase with the industry resigned to the fact that the journey makes sense from economic, labour, welfare, environmental …….. perspectives with many now accepting that the facts must over-ride their emotions and change is inevitable.

Genetics

As for the sheep, I have the data to show that the flock keeps moving forward in terms of performance. Diagram 1 below shows how the index for maternal traits (Replacement Index) and growth and carcase traits (Terminal index) is on an upward trajectory.

But what does this mean on the ground? Below in Picture 5 is information for entire male lambs slaughtered in December having been offered grass only (very wet grass at that). Clearly the sheep can flesh without the need for concentrates, can reach very acceptable weights without becoming over fat and have a good proportion of meat in the carcase.

In terms of the maternal traits, a recent analysis by the geneticist at Sheep Ireland indicated that the number of lambs born per ewe and ewe lamb increased from 1.72 in 2017 to 1.92 in 2022 and lamb survival at birth increased from 90% to 95% during the same period.

The thing about performance figures are that they keep me honest and avoid my vanity making my breeding decisions. I have used the figures to increase milk in the flock over the past 5 years in particular and am now using them to reduce prolificacy a little bit as a ewe flock producing over 200% lambs at birth is too high for outdoor lambing. This may reduce my Replacement Index a bit in coming years but breeding sheep, is not about chasing high indexes it’s about using figures to support your breeding goals.

As to the future I think the Easycare philosophy is being embraced by many and will become a significant part of the lamb production base. What is the alternative for those who want to remain lamb producers and must put food on the table for their family? But with industry acceptance comes responsibility. All of us who are on this journey must remain true to those values espoused by Iolo Owen, who developed the EasyCare TM Breed in the 1960’s and inspired so many of us to develop our own Easycare philosophy. Our EasyCare Sheep must remain the product of a farming system we enjoy, one where the sheep require minimal shepherding and veterinary care and yet offer excellent meat yields and lambing ratios. Thank you Iolo for sharing your vision, without the EasyCare I would not have had this journey and doubt if I would have sheep.