The Farmers Mart Apr/May 2015 - Issue 39 | Page 46

Totley Hall Farm

The breed has become a great
success for the family and their
early lambing flock means they
also hit the market in Bakewell at
a good time. The Dorset provides
an early maturing, fast growing
lamb for which the Pococks aim
to get £100 at 12 weeks.
“All of our surplus ram lambs
and any ewe lambs that do not
match up to a quality pedigree
breeding criteria go to the
fatstock market at Bakewell
just 25 minutes away,” Edwin
added.
“There’s a very strong
market for Dorsets and perhaps
surprisingly to some, there are
quite a few Dorset breeders in
the North of England. We also
sell our female breeding stock
to those with other breeds such
as Texel, for embryo transfer
work because they are such
good mothers.”

The family has also taken to
showing at summer agricultural
shows, breed society shows
and sale days.
“We started showing in
2004 when we took a lamb to
the Great Yorkshire Show and
took second prize. That was
enough to give us the bug.
We still show at Harrogate
and also the society sales at
Exeter, Worcester, Chelford and
Carlisle. It’s a shop window.
That is what it’s all about.”
The biggest ‘shop window’
the family has with the public is
every Christmas. Around 30-40
school groups visit in groups of
20-50, as well as families with
young children.
“For a number of families and
many schools it has become
part of their Christmas tradition
to be a part of the nativity play
by dressing as Mary, Joseph,

46 Apr/May 2015 www.farmers-mart.co.uk

the wise men, shepherds,
angels and innkeepers. Mary
gets to sit on a real donkey,
the shepherds get to carry real
new-born lambs and we also
have Rosie the Hereford cow
in the corner of the stable. And
there’s Father Christmas! I used
to be Santa (Shh, don’t tell the
kids!) but I’d be lambing one
minute and selling Christmas
trees from the farm gate next
minute,” Edwin laughed, “and
so I sometimes got in trouble
turning up late for my Santa
appearance!”
Chris, while heavily involved
with the sheep and the
nativity plays, also runs his
own agricultural contracting
business. He undertakes a wide
variety of work.
“This is a predominantly
grassland area so everything
we do is grass- related. We

‘The Dorset
provides an
early maturing,
fast growing
lamb’
start the season by reseeding
grassland then flat rolling and
mowing. Harvest time for us is
either round baling silage for
beef farmers or haylage for
sheep and horses. We then
move on to haymaking and
second cut silage. That sees
us through to August before
reseeding in the autumn, by
which time we are back round
to lambing again!”
Edwin and Jenny have
another son, Matthew, who
works for a firm of land agents
in Northampton.