Sheep

Blackface Mountain sheep are a small, extremely hardy breed with long wool, black face and horns. Blackface Mountain ewes are known for their good mothering ability and good milk production. This breed of mountain sheep is extremely popular along the west coast of Ireland.

Wicklow Cheviot sheep originate from Scotland. These sheep have a white Face, are medium-sized and are a hardy mountain breed. The ewes are good mothers. They are a popular breed along the east coast of Ireland.

Border Leicester is a large, long wool, white, hornless breed easily recognizable by its upright ears. This breed is known for its prolificacy and the breed imparts its prolificacy on its offspring.

Bluefaced Leicester is another popular, prolific breed in Ireland and, like the Border Leicester, it originates from England. It is a large breed, with a white head and a slight roman nose. Is is also known as the Hexham Leicester. It acquired the name Bluefaced because its skin appears dark blue through its white hair.

The Suffolk originates from England and has a distinctive black head and legs. It is a short and solid breed known for its good carcase quality.

The Suffolk has excellent conformation and fast growth rates. Suffolk-cross lambs are early maturing, reaching slaughter weight in less than 14 weeks, making the Suffolk ram an ideal terminal sire for lambs for the Easter market.

The Texel orginates from The Netherlands. It has a wide white face, with short ears, and it lacks wool on its head and legs. The breed has good conformation and carcase quality and is particularly noted for muscle leanness. Is has slower growth rates than a Suffolk and is used as a terminal sire for mid-season lambs.

The Charollais is a French breed and was bred alongside Charolais cattle. It is a medium sized, heavy sheep with a long loin and muscular hindquarters. It is becoming a popular terminal sire and produces lean, fast growing lambs.

The Beltex is a Belgian breed of sheep that was originally bred from the Texel sheep breed. The name Beltex is derived from a combination of Belgium and Texel. It was first introduced into Ireland in the 1990s. It is a white-faced sheep with medium wool. It is a double muscled breed, having heavy muscling especially on its hindquarters. Beltex sheep have a high kill-out percentage with good carcase quality.

The Galway is the only native sheep breed. It is a large, white, polled lowland sheep. It has long wool and is predominantly found in Galway and some surrounding counties.

It has a good growth rate and when crossed with Suffolk or other continental breeds, it can produce good early lambs

Teagasc undertook research to improve the Galway breed by crossing Galway ewes with the Finnish Landrace, a breed known for its extremely high prolificacy. The ewes were then crossed with a Llyen ram, a Welsh breed known for high prolificacy, strong mothering instinct and good confirmation.

The resulting breed was called the Belclare Improver. Belclare Improvers had improved prolificacy in comparison to the Galway. To improve the conformation of of the breed further, the Belclare Improvers were crossed with Texel rams and today's Belcalre sheep have originated from these Belclare Improver-Texel crosses. The Belcalre ewes normally produce twin lambs, have little lambing difficulty and have good mothering ability.