Lower West Scholes Farm
Meet The Queensbury Show Girls!
Chris Berry talks with Kelly Jowett of Lower West Scholes Farm
» THEY’ RE THE SHOW GIRLS! Mother and daughter Kelly and Fiona Jowett of Lower West Scholes Farm near Queensbury, are having a ball right now showing their own cattle and one of Janet Sheard’ s bulls. It had already been a good year for them before we went to press with this current edition of Farmers Mart – and they still had several shows to attend.
Having already had champion at Honley and reserve champion at Arthington Show in the early part of show season with their Limousin X Belgian Blue called Top Totty, they have since followed up with reserve champion at Emley Show with a Belgian Blue bullock and at the Great Yorkshire Show they by far eclipsed last year’ s efforts with a Limmie X bullock gaining a first place out of 11 in its class a second place with Janet’ s bull and both a third and fifth place with others from their show team. Fiona also achieved fourth in the young handlers.
“ I first started showing with Philip Summers’ cattle,” says Kelly.“ I got the showing bug and decided to get one of my own. It was something I enjoyed right from that first time.”
Kelly was born with a dislocated hip and has had several hip replacements. Her latest surgery involved a reconstruction and has led to her now being unable to take the cattle around the ring but that’ s where Fiona has come in.
“ Fiona took over the showing a couple of years ago and does a great job. We had to pick up on lots of things to show properly. We’ ve been on clipping courses in York and other show people want to help you do well. John Stephenson of Bordley Green has encouraged us by giving show tips and we’ ve watched how others prepare their cattle. Before taking cattle to shows we used to practice on a few that weren’ t going to be shown but were about to be sold, so that they looked good in the market.
“ We know it’ s all about preparation and having the right cattle. You have to get them in condition and this year we managed o get in front and get them nicely balanced out early on. We started with some of this year’ s team in December and we constantly train them and walk with them. The regular human contact is important as it makes them more placid when at a show. Fiona and I walk them up and down the country lane and we let them have a run in the field once a week to work their muscles.”
Any show winnings are being sensibly saved in order to purchase stock and Kelly would like to get to the stage where they have a reasonable number of their own homebred cattle shown.
“ At present our show stock are bought as commercials at sales or privately. We bought a Limousin X from Mark Harriman and Sarah Warriner of Pickering and you can see the better shape and definition. We’ d like a few Belgian Blue X cattle and to b able to get into some pedigree Limousins or Belgian Blues and start our own herd. It will take a while but we currently have one pedigree Blue cow. She’ s had a commercial calf this time and we’ re aiming to buy a heifer at the end of the year. We’ re just going to add one at a time for the moment and keep building up.” Lower West Scholes Farm runs to 20 acres, with a further
80 acres around 10 miles away. Kelly’ s father, Stephen runs 100 head of cattle with sucklers, stores and Kelly and Fiona’ s show cattle. The suckler herd is predominantly Salers X Charolais and pure Salers producing stores sold at Wharfedale Mart in Otley. The pedigrees and strong, quality Limousin and Belgian Blue cattle are sold at main sales in Carlisle.
“ Fiona and I help with dad’ s cattle and Fiona has been
66 Aug / Sep 2016 www. farmers-mart. co. uk