Limerick brothers get creative in sustainable, organic way

Nick Cotter of Cotter Brothers Firewood, forestry and organic sheep on his family farm at Dromtrasna, North Limerick. Picture Dan Linehan

Cotter Bros Firewood is operated by two brothers, Jack (22) and Nick Jr (19). It is a local farm business, based on producing and selling high-quality, ready to burn Wood Fuel Quality Assurance (WFQA) certified firewood.

What is pretty remarkable about the brothers, though, is the fact that they set up the business in 2011 when they were just 11- and 13-years-old and their entrepreneurial skills appear to know no bounds in the intervening years.

They have since designed a crate that will cater for dosing, weighing, tagging and testing lambs and it is destined to become a big success on the organic sheep farm that they run with their father Nick Sr.

The lamb they are producing on the farm is award winning organic lamb and the enterprise has gone from strength since its inception just over 12 months ago.

The Co Limerick duo are not only among the forerunners in Ireland’s effort to decarbonise and live in a more sustainable way, they are also creating machines that are destined to make life easier on the farm and producing high quality lamb along the way.

Nick Cotter with the organic sheep on his family farm at Dromtrasna, North Limerick. Picture Dan Linehan

So, where and how did it all begin for the Cotters?

The seeds were sown for the enterprises in 2010 when Jack came up with the idea of cutting and selling firewood from their own forestry.

Since then the firewood business has taken off, demand for the family’s award winning lamb is increasing with each passing day and they expect to launch their new sheep crate during next year’s National Ploughing Championships.

In fact, it’s the crate that is at the centre of the brothers’ focus now and they are currently carrying out external testing on the product.

In October, the Cotters were nominated for an Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards — the Rising Star Award — for their organic lamb and they clinched the title on the day.

The idea for the crate came after they spent a day trying to vaccinate lambs at four weeks of age on their farm.

The crate aims to make the job easier and more efficient.

“It will also make tagging, dosing and weighing the lambs easier,” Nick Jr told the Irish Examiner, before pointing to how well the machine was received when they showcased it for the first time at last year’s National Ploughing Championship.

“We couldn’t believe how well received it was actually; it was also in two competitions in association with Enterprise Ireland and we came away with both awards.

“We were absolutely delighted.” Meanwhile, they conducted market research and after securing funding from Limerick’s Local Enterprise Office (LEO) have now moved closer to the manufacture of the crate.

The brothers’ plan for next Spring is to carry out external testing with various research institutes and well respected Irish sheep farmers.

However, some tweeks have been made along the way and much of that was brought about as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We had been very much focused on creating the crate for small lambs but because of Covid-19 we were on the farm more and realised very quickly that bigger lambs would also have to be accommodated,” continued Nick Jr.

“So, we had to do a bit of an overhaul of the original design as a result and we are very happy with it at this stage.” During the research phase the brothers also realised that sheep were becoming immune to wormer doses — and that performance in the flock can be affected by as much as 50% without farmers even realising it.

But, as you would expect, they found a solution and one that is based on research done by SRUC and the Moredun Research Centre - both of which are in Scotland.

“We discovered along the way that worms are unevenly distributed in sheep so 80% of worms are only in 25% of the flock,” said Nick Jr. “What that means is that every time a farmer goes dosing his sheep about 75% of them don’t need to be dosed.

“Also, sheep can have their weight gain and how they are performing affected by 50% without showing clinical signs; a lot of lambs are being dosed on the basis they have scour but the fact is that performance can be affected by 50% without farmers even knowing it.

“The best indicator of poor performance is average daily weight gain.

“We have developed a smart phone app that connects with the weight scales to display the weight of the animal but it also shows the average daily weight gain.

“The net result of this is farmers end up only dosing about half the stock.

Nick Cotter and his brother Jack are hoping to launch their new crate at next year's National Ploughing Championships. Picture Dan Linehan

“It also helps in the battle to reduce the animals’ resistance to worming dose which is becoming quite common.

“They need to be used as much as necessary but as little as possible.” Meanwhile, work continues on the crate; the lads filed the patent earlier this year and the focus now is on making it affordable and getting it to the launch stage.

“We also want the crate to be economically viable for farmers and we are hoping to launch the crate at next year’s National Ploughing Championships,” added Nick Jr. “It would be something else if we could achieve that.”

Meanwhile, in respect of the crate, the brothers won the 2019 Engineers Ireland Innovative Student of the Year awards in October; the Best Agri-Engineering Award at the 2020 Munster Innovation Awards; and the Overall ICT Award at the 2020 Enterprise Ireland Student Entrepreneur Awards.