Assessing if the ram team is fit for purpose is an essential task at this point of the season and on this week’s OviCast, Ciarán Lynch is joined by drystock advisor Edward Egan to discuss this in more detail.

Edward starts by explaining why this needs to be conducted now to allow for corrective action to be taken or a replacement ram purchased well in advance of the breeding season.

Edward takes us through some of the basic checks that should be conducted, checking ram soundness and the absence of injuries, infections or other impairments.

They discuss the implications of each of these on the ram’s ability to function correctly and why that assessment needs to be made now.

Edward finishes up explaining how to introduce new rams to the farm highlighting the need to deal with biosecurity issues and how to best acclimatise them to their new surroundings and the rest of the ram team.

The process of the ram health can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/Pd8uSqTMERg

For more episodes from the OviCast podcast, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/sheep/ovicast-sheep-podcast