Langford Pedigree Rouges
Initially it had been a 160 acre dairy farm but land lords did not want to re let as a dairy farm. The whole area was owned by ICI who were involved in brine extraction and there were plans to flatten the farm buildings.
John took the farm on initially with just 11 acres with the rest of the area managed by the owners on a stewardship basis; however, it was not that effective and the area looked a mess for some 10 years. John is now up to 120 acres all on short term lease. Inovyn now own the land and the brine operation and John says they are excellent landlords. There was a lot of work to mainly with the land – basically there wasn’ t a fence in sight and barely any hedges. John has spent three to four thousand a year establishing fencing and hedges and it has meant that fields have been grazed hard.
The sheep flock was initially made up of all sorts of crossbreds about 300- basically whatever they could afford. John became interested in the Rouge’ s because of their easy lambing and ability to get up and suck quickly. John buys about 150-200 Mule gimmer lambs a year from Kirby Stephen and Bentham Auction Mart.
Today his flock is around 650 North Country Mules with April outdoor lambing as the buildings only house about 100. He has about 100 Rouge ewes that lamb inside early March. The flock spend part of their time on the home farm and majority of there time on Tabley park and the Cheshire Showground, which entails a fair amount of transport. For the week of lambing they are all brought back to the farm and after lambing they are pure grass-fed. From late July- August they are sold mainly deadweight to the Two Sisters Food Group which is conveniently has a collection centre a mile away. Out of 650 that lambed only 10
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