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“ I always make sure we don ’ t make a mess and that whatever we do , we ’ re doing it for the right reasons . The landlord is keen on his curlews and that means we have to cut after July , but when we do I make sure we cut from the centre of the fields outwards .
Mark says he went organic for one reason .
“ It was a purely economic decision . We fully converted to organic in 2007 . Because we are organic we can ’ t push anything too much , but we also don ’ t buy anything in . Everything is fed on homegrown oats and clover silage .
“ Our farming mix is about 60 acres arable , 60 suckler cows , taking everything through to slaughter , so those 60 cows have 60 calves and we have the 60 calves from the previous year and 350 breeding ewes .
“ We grow oats . I grow two years of oats which then goes back into grass clover ley or herbal ley . That ’ s my rotation – oats twice then grass .
Mark is a firm believer in recording performance of his stock to improve his sheep and cattle . He tells of making more now out of the 350 breeding ewes than he did with 500 .
“ We have mainly Mules and buy replacements from Pete Webster of Matson Ground Farms near Windermere .
“ We get these 20-25 kilo ewe lambs in October and run them on the river banking at Gatenby for the year . They join the breeding flock the following year as shearlings . Pete has been in an AHDB programme looking at maternal sires and since 4-5 years ago we have increasingly been getting Logie X ewes and some Highland X ewes .
Mark is also involved in an AHDBfunded scheme called Ram Compare .
“ We ’ re in our fifth year . It is Signet recorded . Sam Boon and AHDB are trying to get sheep farmers more interested in terminal sires and their EBVs .
“ There are 9 farms in the programme , all commercial farms . We are all given a variety of tups , in my case 7 , plus we use
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one from the previous year . I put together 8 groups of 40-45 ewes that are then single-sired with these Signet tups that Sam Boon picks and sends . Mark says it has been an eye opener . “ Last year we had 2 Charollais , 2 Texel , a Hampshire , South Down & a SuffTex with New Zealand genetics . I split the ewes by age so that each tup has the same sort of peer group to tup .
“ I went in with this preconceived idea that Texel and Charollais were going to be the best – but what Sam hammers home is that this is not breed compare , it is Ram Compare .
“ When I first got the Hampshire I was thinking it wasn ’ t going to do much good with the ewes , but its lambs have had excellent growth rates . The 2 Texels were top , then the Hampshire and then the 2 Charollais but they ’ re all similar . I ’ ve still
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to get data back from the slaughterhouse about how they will kill out .
Mark says he has been buying EBV recorded tups for 10 years .
“ We ’ ve been recording our ewes and our lamb growth all that time using EID technology that is available to anyone . Breeders can tell what the predicted growth rate is going to be and you know you ’ re probably going to get a substantial amount more for your lambs than by random selection . This is not rocket science . The pig world has been performance recording for decades .
Lambing at The Hutts is at the end of April beginning of May . Mark tells of how having two farming operations 17 miles away from each other can be more a blessing than a curse .
“ We breed everything up at The Hutts and then use Gatenby for finishing .
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“ Because we are organic we can ’ t use certain things for parasite control and having two completely separate farming areas helps as it means both farms can get a break from each other at vital times .
“ We wean early at 11 weeks and the lambs are CT scanned up here to measure eye muscle and backfat . That can then all be traced back to the tups and their rating .
“ Once that is complete they go to Gatenby on the silage aftermath so they get fresh grazing and fresh oats . They are then all sold before Christmas and go to Wales . We get the live weights before they go and AHDB then get the killing out percentages .
Mark says that one of the most important factors to him is the condition of his ewes .
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