Grateful for Susan’s sharp eyes that spotting Ebony had manky maggots
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 04/10/2022

Susan and her partner have been feeding the ewes for me while I still recover from my neck procedure. I was inside resting when they found poor Ebony in a bit of bother. Now she’s been shorn treated with click I shall keep her inside for a while. Two reasons for this. One she is clean shorn and weather will change soon to cold and wet. Secondly click is poisonous to insects so I must keep Ebony out of the fields for at least 5 days. This way it’s less likely dung beetles will die.




Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.