A three-year project spanning eight European countries including the UK has identified nearly 100 solutions to farmers’ sheep health and nutrition needs.
Eurosheep, a knowledge sharing project which started in 2020, aims to enhance the viability of sheep farms by improving their technical performance.
The consortium found 61 common needs relating to sheep health and nutrition across the partner countries of Ireland, UK, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece and Turkey.
The project, funded by EU Horizon 2020, identified 96 solutions - 47 on health and 49 on nutrition - and 52 tips and tricks relating to these needs.
These included practical information on Iceberg diseases and good management for fattening lambs and guidelines on foot-bathing.
It also included the use of tools to measure the energy and nutritional value of forages or feed, and for farmers to record grazing activities.
The project conducted 53 cost benefits on selected solutions and created 26 factsheets when the solutions did not answer the needs.
Dr Claire Morgan-Davies, a livestock systems scientist at SRUC, said the project had been an "incredible" source of knowledge exchanges and discussions between farmers and researchers.
“The final seminar in the south of France was the culmination of the project work," she said.
"It was a great opportunity for the UK farmers we took with us to experience first-hand the issues from the other countries and visit French sheep farms in pastoral mountain areas.”
Eurosheep held its final seminar in France last month, before the project ends on 30 June.
All the materials were translated into seven languages and made available on the project's website.
