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‘ Patch and Priscilla , my first two Jacobs , are beautiful . I got them just before the Oxford Sandy & Blacks . I then needed a ram , so I thought I might as well have two more girls . Off I went to Derbyshire coming back with Pretty Flower and Petunia . Then I bought Casper . He ’ s now gone . I needed to sell him and he went locally to a couple at Withernsea who still have him . I bought a few more girls from various other Jacob breeders and now the flock has grown to around 40 ewes .’
Lucy has also found another source of income from her Jacobs .
‘ You get good fleeces from Jacobs and every lamb I take to meat I get the skin back and make something with it , usually rugs . I ’ ve sold everyone I ’ ve had . I do the rugs myself , but I don ’ t do any spinning .’
The Lleyns became Lucy ’ s second breed because they grow faster and therefore finish faster than the Jacobs . ‘ We had two pet lambs from Pete Vickerton at Atwick , actually before we had the Jacobs , but we took on with the Jacobs fully a bit earlier than the Lleyns . They are a gentle sheep breed to work with . We bought a few girls and a ram from Claire Whitehead near Skirlaugh . We ’ ve kept all of the girls he has produced . We bought five pure Lleyn pedigree girls at Skipton Sheep Sale a couple of years ago . The Lleyns work well here and are really easy to manage .’
Lambing has previously seen two lambing times with the Jacobs lambed
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earlier , as Lucy has been keen to have a Jacob to show at Driffield Show , but this year they will all lamb in March .
Cattle , albeit not dairy , still play a big part in life at Grange Croft Farm .
‘ After we sold the dairy cows I couldn ’ t imagine a life without cows ,’ says Lucy . ‘ We now have a herd of nearly 50 Belted Galloways with 28 cows plus heifers and stock taken through to 30 months when they go to Mounfield ’ s in Bubwith . They are a slow maturing breed that give a great carcase and amazing beef . We ’ ve been getting through one a month in the shop this year .’
‘ We went up to the Belted Galloway sale in Carlisle to purchase our first cattle and bought a bull called Rupert , a cow called Alice with a calf at foot
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and two other cows Lilac and Rave . We had kept all of the young stock from the dairy herd , so when they were old enough all of the young dairy heifers went to Rupert giving us crossbred calves that we either reared or sold . We only have one cross left on the farm now . It is now a pure Belted Galloway herd .’
Red and white Belted Galloways are relatively rare and because a family trait in the Middletons of Wawne is of a certain hair colouring Lucy is collecting animals with the same .
‘ Sam , Blaize and Scarlet all have ginger hair . We have gingery pigs with the Oxford Sandy & Blacks and I found three ginger-coloured Belted Galloways over in Kendal , so I had to have them .’
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Lucy ’ s father now runs a successful holiday cottage business and his Showtime supplies company has been a runaway hit for many years ; now his daughter is having similar retail success with Paradise Produce where she sells masses of their home-produced beef , pork , lamb and much more besides including other Yorkshire produce and her sheepskin rugs .
‘ The farm shop has to work around the farm and the family , particularly as I home educate the children . I have a great butcher , Bob Eggers who comes over from Hull once a week . After our mad time in March and while lockdown was on it started to go gradually back to normal by August 2020 , but we ’ ve had a really busy Christmas ! We ’ re just going to stick to what we are good at !’
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