I shear away fly strike from a relaxed ewe lamb, she almost falls asleep
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2023-09-08

I had a hard time catching her but once caught she relaxed into me as I knelt down to shear her. Though she did bolt away as soon as I rolled her up into her feet. 
It’s very important to understand that I farm the way I do and look after my animals without insecticides unless required for an individual animal. Dung beetles are that vital for biodiversity. 
Using dips and pour on insecticides kill other insects that are ecosystem and environmentally important like dung beetles. We are supposed to have over 40 different kinds of Dung beetles in Ireland but they’re going extinct due to these chemicals. The insecticide kill or disable many insects which eat the manure or urine from animals who have them on them. This includes a diverse variety of pollinators including bees and butterflies.    






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.