On a sunny afternoon in rural Co Offaly, all is peaceful on the Phelan farm in Toberdaly near Rhode.
The Phelans keep cattle and sheep, and it is the latter that has farmer Marita Phelan busy right now.
In one of the farm sheds, all the pregnant ewes are waiting, alongside the new mothers with their lambs born in the last day of so.
Marita keeps a close eye on her charges as the lambs are coming quickly now, with 15 born since the weekend and around 40 more due in the next fortnight.
As we stand chatting, her practiced eye roves around the ewes and sure enough, she spots one in labour.
As she has done so often before she sets about assisting the animal and 15 minutes later the newest lamb twins on the farm are cosied up to mum, a new first-time mother.
Ten minutes later, she is sitting in a nearby grove of trees attending to the lambs already sturdy enough for outside. One needs to be bottle fed, her mother having insufficient milk.
"Sometimes the mother has no milk or very little milk so you have to give them a little special formula just for lambs.
"You mix it up with warm water and like a baby you give him a bottle. It keeps them healthy and strong," she said.
During this busy season, there is a lot of work to be done caring for the lambs and their mothers.
Marita and her family also keep a close eye out for foxes, who would attack a lamb, and also for dogs - the main safety concern for sheep farmers.
"It's a big worry for us now, it just takes a few dogs to get into a frenzy and a pack mentality," she said.
She said there is particular concern in recent times that dogs have been abandoned on the nearby canal greenway, which is a danger.
Weather wise, it has been a mixed year so far, which is not ideal for lambing.
Marita said: "We're lucky we have sheds for the bad and wet weather.
"The cold and the wet is not great for lambs and sheep, it's tricky but we just put them in and they come back out again."
There are 35,000 sheep producers in the country and returns on sheep meat have been improving in recent years, with up to €7 per kilo now being paid.
Most of what we produce is exported with 70% of those exports going to other European countries. That trade was worth €407m in 2021.
