Sam Morton has never seen such high prices for the lambs he sells — and he’s just hoping that beef follows suit, to boost his suckler operation

‘It’s territory I’ve never seen before, I honestly don’t know what to expect when I go to sell my lambs.” Like many sheep farmers, Sam Morton, who farms between Ballymote, Skreen and Dromore West in Co Sligo, is taking a cautious approach to current record-high factory lamb prices and a bustling mart trade.

Nonetheless, he says, the historic return is “well deserved” for the work that goes into bringing spring lambs to slaughter at an early date.

“At Raphoe Mart €170/€180 was being given for factory, and up to butcher weight, lambs. I’ve never received that sort of money for lambs before,” says Sam, 37, who also operates a suckler-to-beef system.

“It’s hard to know will the factories actually hold that price for long, but it’s nice to be able to get it for a change.

“It’s needed for January and early February lamb for the expense that goes into bedding, feeding and everything else to look after them.

“For several years we’d be selling lambs at the end of April, beginning of May and I never remember seeing €8/kg — €7/kg would have been tops.”

With lambs coming fit, Sam intends to send them off to the factory over the next 10-14 days.

“I’ve a nice number coming ready, so prices should stay good — surely they can’t pull them that quick,” he says.

“I’ve a butcher to take heavy lambs off me too, he always looks after me and I’m thankful for that. But the way things are at the moment, it would give you confidence to keep going at sheep.”

Based in Dromore West, between the Ox Mountains and the Atlantic coast, the dad-of-one, and husband to Mary, took over the family farm full-time in 2016 after the death of his father, George.

“He passed away very quickly with a massive heart attack one night, it was tough to get over it at the beginning.

“We miss him always at birthdays, and when I got married two years later and when his grandchild, my daughter Hannah, was born. But time is a healer,” he says, adding that his mother Elizabeth is a “huge support” in the running the farm.

The Mortons started out with store-to-beef, sheep with a small number of dairy cows, but their fragmented 90ha holding was more suited to sucklers and sheep.

“Back in 2006 we started building up suckler cow numbers — we have 50 sucklers now and everything is reared onto beef,” says Sam.

“We’ve increased to 130 ewes with the ram now, and we’ve 50 ewe lambs between home-reared and brought-in, kept for breeding the following year — we don’t breed them the first year, they are left on for hoggets and they are run dry.”

He has a small number of mule ewes, but mostly Suffolk or Suffolk-cross ewes. He runs 30 with a Rouge ram and keeps all the ewe lambs off them as breeding ewes. The other 100 ewes are run with three Beltex rams.

“We have gone more towards a Suffolk ewe or a Suffolk cross ewe for the simple reason they were coming earlier in the year in lamb,” he says. “They’d be crossed back to a Beltex and the Suffolk ewes for breeding replacement and would be crossed back to the Rouge, a very good ewe.

“The Rouge, I couldn’t fault them. They are very easy, hardy lambs, up and suckling quick and they make a great mother. A little bit wild some of them, but most breeds are.”

Sam operates an early spring lambing system, indoors, with sheep going back out to grass again as shed space can be an issue with calving too.

“We used to lamb down the ewe lambs and our biggest problem was twins, maybe the odd set of triplets, and you would end up with a world of pets because you just weren’t able to feed two lambs,” he says. “It was too much hassle to deal with when cows would be calving too.

“So I try to start lambing the end of January, until the end of February. A few would go into March but we’d generally be finished up around St Patrick’s Day.

“This spring we got a chance to get stock out to grass, but we had quite a heavy fall of snow. It drifted but didn’t last long. It was an issue because young lambs were out, and we were bringing feed to them.”

While Sam works predominantly on his own, his young neighbour gives him a hand on Saturdays, which he says is needed given the labour-intense nature of work and as some of his platforms are 25 miles apart.

“Farmers have so little help they can rely on for farm work — very few people want to do it.

“On top of that, to find wages for a second person on the farm is very difficult in spring because you wouldn’t really have an income coming in until the lambs are sold.

"You’re stretching yourself, and farms have plenty of other bills — fuel, fertiliser and feed — so you have to try to do as much as you can on your own where possible.”

Sam’s lambs going to factory are mostly Beltex, he aims for a liveweight of 37/38kg up to 41kg max. He pre-feeds them too.

“The lambs last year averaged out about three-quarter a bag per head for finishing over the 190/200 lambs.”

On the suckler side of the business, Sam’s cows are 95pc Limousin with “a lock of Belgian Blue cows thrown in as well”.

“We’re a bit different in that we run it with an Angus bull. We used to run a Belgian Blue bull, but when he came up for replacement in 2014 we decided to go to Angus.

“The Angus is a hardy calf, up and suckling quick, you don’t have much issues with calving; generally they are trouble-free, no dehorning, and easy finished off grass on too.

“The sucklers are mainly run in Ballymote, but some are kept here and the ewes run through them. They would all be changed together if you were grazing paddocks. They seem to work fairly well together.”

Despite the less favourable situation on beef prices and sector projections compared to sheep, Sam intends to maintain his suckler herd, killing everything under 30 months off grass.

“Beef prices need to rise and loopholes, like the four-movement rule, must be closed because it makes it an unfair system,” he says. “But I intend to hold onto my suckler cow mark — with our lamb base, the system makes sense for us here and I’m glad I stuck with it.”

‘Sheep were always better to us than cattle ever were’

Young farmers are “turning their backs” on “real opportunities” to make a decent living from sheep farming, says Sam Morton.

While the 37-year-old says the sector is hard work, he believes young farmers “can get back what they put into their enterprise”.

The sheep and suckler farmer accepts that access to land remains a vital issue for those starting out.

Reflecting on his own experience, Sam points out that he inherited the home-farm when his father, George, passed away sudden suddenly in 2016. At the time the duo were in the midst of organising their farm partnership.
“The sheep are labour-intensive and whatever you get out of them, you have it earned,” he says.

“But I don’t think there are too many young farmers that want to go into sheep, for most it’s dairy only; they turn their backs on beef and sheep.

“They would sooner be milking, and you couldn’t blame them because if they have land and a set-up, there would be more profit out of it probably.”

But with lambs, if prices stay at their current levels, he says “it would be as good as any sector”.

“I would encourage young farmers to get into sheep. Sheep were always better to us than cattle ever were. My mam might say differently, but with sheep you haven’t near the expense needed for cattle.

“If you are willing to put in the time minding them, lambing and keeping an eye on them for other issues, you will have a decent enough return out of it.”