Materials and methods
2.1. Study design and selection criteria
Data collection was planned to continue until saturation of ideas/categories occurred (Morgan, 1997 and Krueger and Casey, 2009). A total of 7 focus groups stratified by geographical region and farmer age (≤50 and >50) were carried out in England in 2010. There were two focus groups held in each of the north, centre and south east of England and one in the south of England. Inclusion criteria were male farmers producing lambs for meat with a flock size of at least 200 adult ewes.
An introductory letter describing the aims of the study and a pre-screen questionnaire (asking information on age, gender, flock size, other enterprises and level of veterinarian contact) was sent to 80 sheep farmers per region randomly selected by EBLEX (the levy body for beef and sheep farmers). Farmers were invited to participate in a focus group, interested farmers were asked to respond by completing the questionnaire. It was highlighted that the number of farmer places were limited. Travel expenses of £20 were offered to each participant.
From the pre-screen responses, 8–10 farmers per focus group that met the selection criteria with a range of age, flock sizes, other enterprises and level of veterinarian contact were purposively selected and invited to participate. A letter confirming the venue and some initial details of the focus group process was sent to them. A total of 45 farmers attended one of the seven focus groups. Details of the number of participants per focus group by age group, region and range of flock sizes are presented in Table 1.