The objective of this study was to identify and understand grassland management practices employed on dairy farms in the Republic of Ireland, including grazing-season length, concentrate-feed input, uptake of new grassland-management technologies and frequency and methods of sward renewal. The sample population for the survey was chosen from a proportionate representation of all milk suppliers taken from three of the largest dairy processors in the Republic of Ireland. The sample was subsequently broken down into three stocking rate (SR) and three size categories of milk quota (Qcat) to investigate their effects on the survey variables. Both SR and Qcat had significant effects on the proportion of participants adopting grassbased technologies and on the amount of supplementary feed offered. Grazing-season length increased from 228 d in Qcat1 to 249 d in Qcat 3 but was unaffected by SR (241 d; s.d. 3AE05). The proportion of the grazing area reseeded annually was significantly affected by SR, increasing from 0AE044 to 0AE095 of the grassland area as SR increased from SR1 to SR3, with no effect of Qcat (0AE068). The results show that on-farm grass utilization is low, with significant potential for expansion and increased efficiency through increased SRs, greater adoption of grassland-management technologies and higher levels of sward renewal.

Lameness has a major negative impact on sheep production. The objective of this study was to 1) quantify the repeatability of sheep hoof temperatures estimated using infrared thermography (IRT); 2) determine the relationship between ambient temperature, sheep hoof temperature, and sheep hoof health status; and 3) validate the use of IRT to detect infection in sheep hooves. Three experiments (a repeatability, exploratory, and validation experiment) were conducted over 10 distinct nonconsecutive days. In the repeatability experiment, 30 replicate thermal images were captured from each of the front and back hooves of nine ewes on a single day. In the exploratory experiment, hoof lesion scores, locomotion scores, and hoof thermal images were recorded every day from the same cohort of 18 healthy ewes in addition to a group of lame ewes, which ranged from one to nine ewes on each day. Hoof lesion and locomotion scores were blindly recorded by three independent operators. In the validation experiment, all of the same procedures from the exploratory experiment were applied to a new cohort of 40 ewes across 2 d. The maximum and average temperature of each hoof was extracted from the thermal images. Repeatability of IRT measurements was assessed by partitioning the variance because of ewe and error using mixed models. The relationship between ambient temperature, hoof temperature, and hoof health status was quantified using mixed models. The percentage of hooves correctly classified as healthy (i.e., specificity) and infected (i.e., sensitivity) was calculated for a range of temperature thresholds. Results showed that a small-to-moderate proportion of the IRT-estimated temperature variability in a given hoof was due to error (1.6% to 20.7%). A large temperature difference (8.5 °C) between healthy and infected hooves was also detected. The maximum temperature of infected hooves was unaffected by ambient temperature (P > 0.05), whereas the temperature of healthy hooves was associated with ambient temperature. The best sensitivity (92%) and specificity (91%) results in the exploratory experiment were observed when infected hooves were defined as having a maximum hoof temperature ≥9 °C above the average of the five coldest hooves in the flock on that day. When the same threshold was applied to the validation dataset, a sensitivity of 77% and specificity of 78% was achieved, indicating that IRT could have the potential to detect infection in sheep hooves.

Investigating the role of stocking rate and prolificacy potential on profitability of grass based sheep production systems, Livestock Science,

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Highlights Economic values are widely used in the development of breeding objectives internationally. The economic value of a trait in a breeding objective can be defined as the change in profit value of a unit change in an individual trait, while keeping all other traits constant. A total of fourteen traits of economic importance representing maternal, lambing, production and health characteristics were calculated within a whole farm bioeconomic model. Results from this study will enable the implementation of new economic values within the national terminal and maternal Irish sheep breeding objectives which highlights the traits of importance for increasing overall farm profitability.