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that the village had taken back on with a lot of investment from Germany . There was a new 400-cow dairy unit , but when you went into the parlour they were only milking 16 cows at a time . They said it was to ‘ keep the women of the village in a job and it stops them misbehaving ’. It was like something out of Borat ! I also went to Italy where they have a lot of Indians working on their farms .’
John is delighted with what he now has at home at Low Farm . He works hard on his Genus ABS work which takes him right across the Moors , the Vale of Pickering and down the coast but he loves that it has afforded him the chance to farm in his own right in a fabulous location .
He is now running a herd of 35 commercial sucklers and just short of 20 pedigree British Blondes . He ’ d like to get the cow numbers up to 75 with 30 of them being Blondes .
‘ Edwin Pearson of Thistlegrove Blondes at Thistle Lodge Farm , Aislaby got me into Blondes when I bought our first pedigree heifer from his sale . The foundation cows came from our good friends Neil and Jess Barrett of Everingham who did really well at Driffield Show in July ; and from Ian and Sue Archer ’ s prestigious Marston
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Mill herd in Warwickshire .’
‘ I ’ m using quite a bit of sexed semen to build up the Blonde cow numbers at present . We will go back to producing Blonde bulls to sell once we ’ ve reached the number I ’ d like to get to . We ’ ve sold stock bulls privately so far and customers have been happy with them and are wanting us to do more . We have a lot of French and Irish bloodlines . We are using one of our own homebred Blonde bulls on our commercials .’
While the Blonde herd is more about growth in number presently , the commercial herd is already ticking the boxes at Ruswarp Mart .
‘ You can ’ t get past Ruswarp when it comes to having a great platform to sell stores ,’ says John . ‘ It ’ s right on our doorstep and has a fantastic reputation . Commercial cattle farmers in this area know how to produce good stock and Ruswarp has a fantastic following .
‘ Ruswarp has a great monthly sale of store cattle and four well supported suckler sales through the year . All our
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commercial bulls go at 9 months when they are usually around 350 kilos and the heifers at a year . Our bull calves born in
August last year averaged £ 1244 per head in May .’
‘ We also use Malton when Ruswarp doesn ’ t have a sale and we have stock ready . We have several regular buyers including Stuart Warrener of Lockton .’
‘ We feed silage and barley blends . The blends for the creep comes from Jameson ’ s in Masham . We also have Robin Wilkinson of Northern Nutrition who does a very good job for us .
John has had a big move towards mid-summer and into autumn calving .
‘ We ’ ve traditionally been spring and autumn calving , but now that we also have sheep they need to take a bit more priority at lambing time and I need the space in the sheds .’
John ’ s overall aim with the cattle is to continue selling stores as the regular income and build on his pedigree bull sales for his Blonde bulls to go into commercial herds .
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‘ At some point we will crossbreed some of the pures trying a Blue or a Limmie . We set off with a bit of Blue , Limmie or Blonde out of a Blue cow . It ’ s the milk on them that works , that ’ s why I went for French bloodlines because they concentrate on the maternal side .’
The sheep have been a learning curve for John , as they are for any committed cattle man who has swerved them previously .
‘ It ’ s the newest venture and this has only been our third lambing season . Everyone gets involved , including my sisters Carol and Jane and their families . They ’ re all a great help around the farm .’
‘ We are running a flock of around 200 breeding ewes which include 120 Mules , 30 Swaledales and 50 Texel X out of the Mules . We also have Bluefaced Leicesters for lambing our own tups .’
‘ Lambing is in March and the lambs go to Ruswarp as stores starting the first week of August .’
John tenants the 150 acres at Low Farm and also rents a further 60 acres on short term lets .
‘ We are trying to be as self-sufficient as possible and we have grown 50 acres of spring barley varieties Diablo and
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