John Renehan has been nominated for the highest achieving LambPlus flock in 2019 and farms near Johnstown, Co. Kilkenny. Violet Hill Belclares are one of three flocks nominated for the Highest Achieving LambPlus Flock 2019 and the other two flocks will be announced in the coming weeks. John established Violet Hill Belclares in 1995 and has been an active member of LambPlus since 2009. John has put a significant amount of thought into the breeding decisions of his flock and all sheep are produced under commercial conditions with commercial farmers in mind as potential customers.

In John’s opinion the Belclare breed has sufficient prolificacy and milk production so John’s breeding focus is to improve the terminal traits of his flock. John has focused on the growth and carcass traits of his animals with his 2019 lambs having an average €uro-Star value of €0.59 on the Terminal index. John was quick to mention that despite his aim to improve the terminal aspect of his flock, he has not ignored the replacement traits which are the unique selling point of the Belclare. John’s 2019 lambs have an average €uro-Star value of €8.25 on the Replacement index.

All John’s ewes are mated naturally, and he has avoided the use of AI as he feels the Belclare breed has a relatively small gene pool and he is acutely aware of the risks of inbreeding and the importance of maintaining different bloodlines within the breed. John has an average index accuracy of 45% and he has improved his animals’ index accuracy by providing rams to the CPT regularly and also being involved in the RamPlus programme. John was also a member of the MALP programme which resulted in a large amount of data being collected on his flock. John goes to great efforts to record as much accurate data as possible including health traits such as lameness, dag score and mastitis, resulting in John’s high DQI of 91%.

John has made full use of the CPT and RamPlus programs to avail the top Belclare sires and many sires have had a big influence on his flock. John selects rams on their terminal and replacement indexes and also aims to match rams to ewes so that their physical characteristics complement each other. This approach was demonstrated by John using a ram with excellent terminal characteristics, bred by Tom Flanaghan (TF131634) on daughters of Violet Hill JR094747 which had excellent replacement qualities but lacked terminal characteristics. John has been able to retain rams of his own by keeping several different bloodlines in his flock and by keeping a very close eye on the Sheep Ireland inbreeding checker.  Home bred rams that have had a big influence on John’s flock include Violet Hill JR1307445, Violet Hill Chappy, Violet Hill COED and Violet Hill JR094747. Violet Hill JR094747, for example, has over 792 recorded progeny through his participation in the CPT highlighting the wide reach of Violet Hill Belclares.