News

The Society Breed Statement & Mission Statement

The Easy Care Sheep is a fleece shedding, medium sized, white, polled sheep capable of lambing without assistance and rearing their lambs off grass. The sheep is a commercial breed. Easy Care Sheep cannot be entered into shows as the breed founder, Iolo Owen, feels that the sole object of showing is to emphasise traits that may ruin the easy lambing aspects of the breed he has spent half a Century developing.

The true Easy Care Sheep must not be appear to be over fed, over-sized or crossed with terminal type sires to enhance unwanted characteristics, these being broad chests, big heads, big back ends, poor feet or none fleece shedding coat – this list is not exhaustive and the Society reserves the right to remove any sheep they believe do not conform to the true Easy Care Sheep breeding from Society Sales.

Where Easy Care Sheep are being sold privately via either members or non-members, it is for the purchaser to make sure they are confident they are purchasing a true Easy Care Sheep.

What the Society does:

We promote the true Easy Care Sheep breed as developed by Mr Iolo Owen of Glantraeth, Bodorgan, Anglesey via the means of:

Society Sales

Newspaper adverts

Newspaper articles

Stands at National Sheep Association events

A website

A Facebook Page

Twitter

Society Open Days

We ensure the breed is represented correctly at Society Breed sales.

For clarification:

The Easy Care Sheep must not have been sheared

The Easy Care Sheep fleece must shed to leave a hair coat through the summer months

The Easy Care Sheep must be hornless

The Easy Care Sheep is white in colour

The Easy Care Sheep female is 60 – 70 kg at mature weight depending on where it lives

The Easy Care Sheep male is 80 – 100kg at mature weight depending on where it lives

The male should be wedged shaped at the shoulders to ensure ease of lambing

The Easy Care Sheep should have a slim ‘rat tail’ type tail

It is preferable that breeders keep the Easy Care Sheep’s tail intact but not essential

Legs must be strong and straight and feet must be sound

The Easy Care Sheep is a commercial breed we do not ‘show’ Easy Care Sheep

We provide a website as a platform for fully paid up members to sell their sheep from and to inform the public about the breed. The website has the details of upcoming events and is always being updated

We have annual open days and provide the means of allowing breeders to have more on farm events if they wish to

We provide voluntary regional co-ordinators to discuss the merits of the breed to prospective buyers

The Treasurer collects £25 annual subscription/member which helps to pay for the promotion of the breed

All office holders are volunteers

We have a steering committee which meets once a year to discuss the way forward for the breed. Any member is welcome to join. There is no payment for this commitment

A quarterly newsletter is sent to all fully paid up members via email

Easy Care Sheep Society Summer 2017 Newsletter

AN ABRIDGED AND PHOTOGRAPH FREE NEWSLETTER WHICH WAS SENT TO THE SOCIETY MEMBERS IN SUMMER 2017 VIA EMAIL

The Society met for the Annual Society Open Day and AGM on the weekend of 10^th June 2017 in Southern Ireland. Our hosts, Jim and Allison Greer along with our Irish Easy Care Society Co-Ordinators, Steven Feehan and Steven Johnson and their families had put together an excellent itinerary of events for the members who travelled out.

Easy Care Sheep wanted in Europe

If you live in Europe and have Easy Care sheep why not join the Society?

I get lots of enquiries from people all over Germany, Holland and France wanting to start Easy Care sheep flocks as they are now realising that they are the most progressive type of sheep to own.

Easy Care Sheep - Take care when purchasing from social media sites

Easy Care sheep are not pedigree nor are they 'registered', nor do we have a flock book. The original Easy Care sheep have been bred over the last 50 years by Iolo Owen at his farm on Anglesey. The true Easy Care sheep is one derived from his flock. That sheep is derived from mixing breeds and a lot of hard work.

Carlisle Autumn Sale of Easycare Sheep

29th September 2017

Harrison & Hetherington held their Annual Autumn sale of Easy Care sheep on Friday 29th September, where an aged ram sold for the top price of the day of 750gns.

Website Advertising

You have to be a member to advertise on the website. You cannot upload your own information. Please send the wording you wish to use and photo/s to info@easycaresheep.com and I will place the advert on the site for you.

Brisk trade for Easy Care sheep at the Society Annual Sale in Worcester September 2017

An excellent show of strong, well shed and correctly presented sheep greeted buyers from all over the UK on Saturday 23rd September at the Society's annual breeding sale.

Society Sales

Please note the Society Sales are for paid up members only. Please avoid us having to chase you for £25 on the day.

The rams are sold in guineas [one pound and five pence] and will have an upset price of usually 200gns but this can be altered if discussed and agreed with ram vendors on the day. Ram lambs and senior rams may be less than 200gns.

First Easy Care Sale at Skipton Market

The first Easy Care sale at Skipton had a smallish but good quality show of true to type Easy Care sheep. The mart had ensured the sale was well advertised with at least 6 entries in the Farmers Guardian and Yorkshire Post plus their own website and facebook pages.

Easy Care Sheep tags

Please note, you can ring up your preferredtag supplier and request that they supply you with tags with EASYCARE written on. There are no favoured suppliers of tags within the Society.

Daily Telegraph Letter

Self-shearing sheep.

Sir - Everyone must surely agree with Prince Charles about the superlative qualities of wool and wish him every success in his Campaign for Wool (Magazine, September 3).

Newsletter Summer 2015

The annual Open Day as held by kind permission of Richard an Caroline Owen at Trefri, Bodorgan, Anglesey on 20th June. We held the Annual General Meeting at Iolo Owen's farm prior to the Open Day.

Spring 2015 Newsletter

This will probably be my last letter as your secretary. I have had a lot of head scratching and a lot of pleasure writing them over the past 12 years. I have certainly learned to appreciate the work of those who churn articles out to various publications on a regular basis.

Winter 2014 Newsletter

We are the most rapidly increasing breed in the UK – and that’s official in the recent E.B.L.E.X report on the state of British sheep breeds based on a survey of over 10,000 sheep farmers and published roughly every 10 years. The ‘Easy Care’ have risen from 13,000 in 2003 when the society was formed to 119,000 in 2013 and increase of over 80% annually. I’m sure if all the grading up numbers were shown it would be significantly more – Congratulations!