Every day’s a School day

This newspaper played a little part in Cavan’s most prominent sheep farmer, David Beattie, deciding to enter the sector.

David was back home from working in England, and planning to make use of the 110-or-so acres of farmland his family had leased out for the previous 30 years. Undertaking renovations to the house in which he was reared, he uncovered a rolled up Anglo-Celt jammed behind a timber frame window he was replacing.

“It was the farming section from the 1980s,” recalls David, “it said something along the lines of: profitability in sheep farming was determined by the number of lambs that was born.

“I had dry cattle in my mind, and when I read that line I was like - sheep might suit me, if I get a breed that would produce lots of lambs.”

Since taking the sheep plunge, David has learned a lot of lessons the hard way as anyone who follows his ‘Sheep School’ YouTube channel will know. At the time of writing he has over 13K subscribers to the channel and his latest episode ‘Sheep Showdown’ has been watched by over 30K in the 11 days since it was uploaded. That episode’s success was no fluke - actually an episode called ‘Liver Fluke Lessons Learned’ amassed over 57K views, while one on mending a round baler’s axle has racked up over 100K views.

This ‘Sheep School’ stuff was in the future however when David was sitting with a yellowed Celt in his lap. His family hadn’t farmed the land since his father passed away when he was aged just nine. His father had milked around 25 cows, had some dry cattle and 50-60 sheep too, and David as a gasún had loved helping out - “I was his right hand man”.

His father’s passing could have seen him drift away from farming, but instead the following year a neighbour kindly let him “trick away” on his dairy farm, and there he found his gift for machinery.

Although he took a course in Ballyhaise Ag College as a gap year, it appeared his future would lie away from farming as he undertook a degree in engineering in Harper Adams in Shropshire.

Returning home to Dillagh David set up his own engineering workshop.

“The stuff that lands to me is the stuff that nobody else wants to do - but I seem to enjoy that challenge,” he says.

David married Ballinagh woman Orla in September 2014 - they now have three children, of Ada (8) Enya (4) Noah (2) - and the very next month he started his foray into sheep farming with 15 ewe lambs.

David lists the top three major problems with rearing sheep as the flock breaking out, maggots and dodgy feet.

With the help of a generous grant he did 3km of fencing to prevent break-outs, a “relatively new product” called ‘Click’ keeps maggots at bay for 17 to 18 weeks.

“That’s amazing for me because I mightn’t get to see my sheep only once or twice a week.”

The third problem of foot rot is a major consideration as David says, “Up to five, even 10 per cent of flocks could have problems with foot rot.”

He happily reports that his choice of breed, a Welsh sheep called Lleyn (pronounced clin) resolves that particular issue.

“I landed on a breed that was virtually foot problem free,” he says guestimating the last time he treated a sheep for foot rot was three years ago.

“They are the biggest lowland breed almost in the UK, and they’re getting quite popular here as well. They suited my system - they are prolific having lots of lambs without having too many multiples, and quite low maintenance.”

Their good foot health is just one feature of Lleyns which gives them their “low maintenance” billing.

For many people low maintenance and sheep don’t go hand in hand, and David cheerfully acknowledges “there’s an awful lot of things that can go wrong with sheep.”

He recalls one particularly “rough winter” forcing his father to house his sheep in a shed.

“They started to die, as sheep will do,” he quips.

A vet soon discovered the sheep had been licking the paint of an old cart in the shed.

“It was lead paint and it was killing the sheep. I discovered early on that sheep were quite good at dying, if they got any opportunity at all.”

David tries to keep those opportunities to a minimum and has been doing well as suggested by the growth of his flock.

“I had planned just to run drystock and then said I’d try lambing a few and within a few years there were 100 sheep, and now I’m lambing 300 sheep. Between lambs and sheep and hoggets that go for sale and rams there was 1,000 head in the summer.

“It’s been a fast expansion and a lot of learning too - it’s a serious crash course.”

Having done a couple of videos, one for Agriland to promote a Lleyn open day he was hosting, and another he made himself to show the stock he was bringing to a sale, David was well able to speak in front of the camera. He was introduced to the joys of agri-channels on Youtube during Covid, and his wife Orla encouraged him to start his own. In September 2022 she gave him a further push by buying him a Gopro camera.

“At the time I was finishing lambs in the shed unprofitably,” he says of the making his first School Shed the following November. “Meal was expensive, bedding was expensive and I was feeding lambs and I knew the weight they were putting on.

“I thought with this content I can get a message across: I’m feeding sheep and there’s no money in it. So I recorded a video and released it and it was a success.”

Over 20K views to put a figure on it. A fortnight later he posted his second from there he’s had a video out every Sunday since, save for one or two weeks.

Lately the Sheep School success has fed into his engineering business too.

“I’ve started making quite a lot of sheep handling equipment: head stocks and dressing stands, and lamb feeders - it’s the stuff I find I badly need on my farm.

“I always say to myself, somebody else has to be in this same boat - they need some way of holding a sheep and that’s how I came up with the head stocks. I showed them being used on some of my videos and they are selling really well.”

So has he figured out how to make sheep farming profitable?

“Sheep farming is the lowest paid type of farming, but it’s the cheapest to operate, so if it goes horribly wrong it probably won’t bankrupt you, whereas if your dairy herd goes horribly wrong or if your shed full of cattle goes horribly wrong it’s quite expensive. I’m not saying you can’t lose money on sheep, but if the sheep go reasonably well, you will get a few pounds out of it, the costs are very low.”