Chris Berry talks with Tom Carlisle of Coxons Farm , Cracoe

WHEN Tom Carlisle was a teenager he says he wasn ’ t necessarily thinking about whether he was going to follow his father into farming and become the fifth generation to do so at Coxons Farm in Cracoe .

“ I hadn ’ t really known what I had wanted to do . The farm was always here . A lot of people like me who have grown up on a farm feel pressurised into following on as the next generation , but I never had or felt that pressure . My parents told me I could do whatever I wanted and I appreciated that freedom .

“ It was when I spent all summer on the farm one time that I thought how much I really enjoyed it . I spent three years studying agriculture at Newcastle University and then returned to the farm full-time .

Tom is now 30 and went into the family partnership with his mum and dad , Julie and John , in 2020 when his granddad Donald stepped out of the partnership .

“ It ’ s been like a progression ,’ says Tom .

Coxons runs to 420 acres which the family owns and is all down to grass . It is primarily a sheep farm with 650 breeding ewes , but also with a suckler herd of 40 cows .

“ For round here it is a medium sized hill farm with land classed as disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged .

“ Our flock is made up of 100 Mules producing Texel X Mule gimmers , which give us our halfbred Texel X ewes that are crossed again on to Texels or Beltex to produce threequarter-bred Texel or Beltex lambs that go as fat lambs at Skipton . It means we have around 550 Texel X ewes .

“ We ’ re quite strict on our ewe breeding policy . We like young fit sheep and the ewes average around four-shear .

“ Lambing starts around mid- March until the end of April . We scanned at 210 per cent last year and had nearly 200 per cent turning out rate before the young sheep and hoggs .

“ Our first lambs go to market in July at around four months and we normally get them all away by Christmas . We sold our last lambs a little earlier at the end of last year and despite not being our absolute best , as they were the last for a reason , they still made £ 127 per lamb at 298p / kilo . It was quite amazing after all the talk there had been the year previous of poor prices because of coming out of Europe .

Tom says he doesn ’ t know how long lamb will remain high in price but that he is quite happy with the way prices were in 2021 .

“ We ’ ve certainly been enjoying them . Nobody knows how long this will last but in the short term it has been really positive . We would normally send some as stores if we get to the point

where we struggle for grass but that wasn ’ t the case in 2021 as the lambs got away in good time .

“ The height we are at we sometimes don ’ t have much grass in winter and as we are purposely low input we don ’ t use a lot of fertiliser , but we like to let the fields grow again for the upcoming season , which is why we would sometimes sell as stores , as well as for the extra income .

“ The ewes go up on the higher ground after running with the tup and are brought down nearer to lambing time when we give them hay and cake , plus sugar beet or whatever is suitable and available . As we get ever closer to lambing we give them extra glucose feed .

“ We send 200 of the shearlings for wintering up at Penrith , which eases pressure on our fields . They went just before Christmas this past year , with the later lambing sheep coming back at the beginning of March .

Tom says he is always looking to improve the quality of the farm ’ s stock .

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