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1. In what county is your farm?

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2. Area of land farmed (include rented and commonage) - specify if your answer is in acres or hectares

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3. What age category are you in?

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4. What best describes your farming system?

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5. Details of your sheep numbers at time of census December 2023

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6. If you have a breeding flock, please state number of lambs on farm at weaning time in 2024 (including those sold at an earlier date)

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7. Do you work off the farm?

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8. If Yes how many hours on average per week do you work in your off farm job?

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9. How many days per year do you take annual leave from your off farm job to complete farming tasks e.g. lambing time, shearing, silage, mart/factory etc.

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10. How many different land blocks do you use for your sheep?

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11. Does the land you farm involve the transport of sheep by trailer between a number of different land blocks?

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12. For which of the following task do you use a contractor? (tick all that apply)

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13. Do you have designated sheep handling facilities? (not also used for cattle handling)

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14. If Yes, please indicate which of the following you use (tick all that apply)

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15. What length is the race in your main sheep handling unit (please state whether feet or metres)?

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16. Do you use a footbath for lameness prevention in your flock?

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17. If Yes, which of the following best describes your foot bathing facilities

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18. How many ewes can your footbath hold at one time?

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19. Tick all features on the list that you currently have as part of your handling facilities (tick all that apply)

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20. Do you feel that improving or adding features to your sheep handling facilities could reduce labour with your flock

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21. Which of the following best describe how your ewes are overwintered?

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22. If ewes are housed, for how many weeks pre lambing are they housed?

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23. If you house ewes, which housing type do you use?

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24. Have you availed of TAMS funding for any of the following? (tick all that apply)

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25. Do you identify problem ewes for culling on an ongoing basis throughout the year?

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26. Which of the following best describes your situation in terms of assistance with sheep work?

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27. Select the day of the week that sheep tasks are most often carried out (one answer only)

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28. Which of the following do you have in place on your farm? (tick all that apply)

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29. Rank the following from 1 to 6 for how you see they contribute to overall labour efficiency in carrying out your sheep farming activities (1 being most beneficial, 6 being least beneficial)

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30. How many individual lambing pens do you have?

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31. Do you have a system to supply piped water to individual lambing pens eg drainage pipe or piped drinker for each pen?

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32. Do you have a hot water heating system and sink in place in the farmyard?

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33. Where it is not possible to cross foster surplus lambs at lambing, which of the following best describes how you manage other pet/surplus lambs

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34. Rank the following from 1 to 6 in terms of labour demand during the lambing season (1 being most time spent, 6 being least time spent)

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35. Rank the following from 1 to 6 in terms of labour demand from turn out after lambing to weaning (1 being most time spent, 6 being least time spent

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36. Rank the following from 1 to 6 in terms of labour demand from weaning to mating (1 being most time spent, 6 being least time spent

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37. How regularly are lambs weighed/drafted for sale?

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38. Do you carry out other tasks such as worm treatment, mineral drenching, lameness treatment etc. when lambs are gathered for weighing/drafting?

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39. Rank the following from 1 to 6 in terms of labour demand from mating to lambing (1 being most time spent, 6 being least time spent

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40. Please list any measures you have taken on your farm which have reduced labour with your sheep flock

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41. Please list any measures you would like to implement on your farm which you feel would reduce labour with your sheep flock

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42. Have you already or are intending to reduce sheep numbers on your farm?

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43. Which of the following would be the main reason that would influence you to decide to reduce sheep numbers or get out of sheep altogether

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