Analysing the 2025 performance of your sheep farm is essential to plan for the coming year.

That's according to Teagasc adviser, Michael Daly who has highlighted the benefits of and provides a step-by-step guide to completing a Teagasc Profit Monitor.

The sheep Profit Monitor is a management tool to analyse and assess the performance and profitability of a flock.

Its key benefits include: a summary of the flock performance and productivity; costs (€) per ewe and flock profitability; comparing multiple years as part of long-term planning; comparison of multiple enterprises within farm and individual costs.

Gathering information

The adviser has acknowledged that completing a Profit Monitor initially can be daunting and while a farmer can enter data directly into the Teagasc Profit Monitor portal, the most practical method is to get an input sheet from your local adviser.

The following is a step-by-step guide provided by Teagasc to assist sheep farmers gather the relevant information.

Step 1: Use your AGFOOD login to access DAFM portal

Once logged into the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) portal, this will give you the following:

Land details: Net area of all lands owned/leased and the crop breakdown if you have a mixed enterprise. This will also flag any land rental costs;
Sheep Census: This will give the opening and closing sheep numbers;
Direct payments: Under the financial services tab on the portal, you can generate a summary statement of scheme payments within the year.

Step 2:  Copy of flock scan receipt

If you have your flock scanned, this will give you the number of mature breeding ewes/ewe lambs (in lamb) to the ram.

This information is useful to compare with lambs born/sold.

Step 3: Flock register/dispatch book

Starting with opening sheep numbers, the flock register will assist with generating numbers of lambs/ewes/rams sold or purchased and provide an accurate stock reconciliation for the year.

Step 4: Factory/mart statements

Your local mart/factory will email you a statement for all stock sold/purchased and this will provide all weights and appropriate levies applied on each sale/purchase.

Step 5: Merchant statements

All merchants/vet/animal health suppliers provide calendar statements (both in hardcopy and email format) for all purchases, which can be allocated to either the variable or fixed expenses.

Step 6: Bank statements/cheque book stubs

If you have a banking online login, statements can be printed or generated into an excel sheet for all money/ out for the calendar year.

This is useful to find all farm card payments. Your cheque book stubs will also provide payment details.

Step 7: Farm taxation accounts

This will provide any land/machinery depreciation values for the year.

Benefits

Inputting all the relevant information will generate an accurate Sheep Profit monitor for 2025 and some of the reports that can be produced are:

Whole farm;
Sheep Detailed;
Sheep Multiple Years.

Overall, the sheep Profit Monitor should give an indication of flock profitability, but it is extremely useful in showing the true costs of production on a per ewe/hectare basis.

The Teagasc adviser added that it will help you benchmark your flock performance (both physical and financial) against Teagasc monitor farms and generally give you added confidence with any long-term planning for your farm.