The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2014 - Issue 34 | Page 48

HALL FARM Making it pay for two families Chris Berry visits the Wise family at Hall Farm, Skipton-on-Swale. If you ever needed a demonstration of how a family farm has had to grow in order to support two families, then Hall Farm at Skipton-on-Swale is a fine example. Brian Wise’s grandfather bought the 270-acre farm in 1958. His father, Richard, took over the reins before in his turn, Brian took over. Today, the farm acreage runs to 520 with 300 at Hall Farm; 80 acres at Breckenborough near Sand Hutton; 30 acres rented towards Ripon and another 110 acres of rented grazing in different areas. Brian explained: “When my father farmed he had four men working here, plus his brothers who also farmed elsewhere but would come and help at the busiest times. Nowadays, a farm of 250 acres would struggle to support two families and since farming was always what our son, Philip wanted to do since leaving schoolm, we have added to our farming acreage.” You could say they’ve “beefed it up” too as they started with Simmentals in 1988 and have developed a strong reputation for their Swaleside pedigree stock during the past 26 years. “We were fattening cattle and rearing barley bulls but we quite liked the way the Simmentals had performed through the beef fattening unit,” Brian said. “We also enjoyed seeing them at the Great Yorkshire Show and noticed that someone was having a reduction sale in Leicestershire. That’s how we started with our pedigree herd and today we have 16 pedigree Simmentals. Our calving season starts at the beginning of February and finishes around the end of April. We turn out our cattle in April and they are out until October. We also use an Angus bull on our heifers to put an outcross back, rather than keeping everything pure,” he added. “Once we had two or three Simmental cows we decided to go down the suckler cow route and now nearly all our cows are homebred Simmental X or pedigree stock. Our fat cattle go to Thirsk Mart and a lot of our heifers either go into the stores market or for breeding. We always seem to have a list of more people wanting our stock than we have available and many are regular customers.” Tel: Your Friendly Local Chartered Accountants 01609 777 788 Fax: [phone] Address: Forster Stott are chartered accountants based in York and Thirsk We have many years experience working with the Farming community and are pleased to be associated with Brian Wise and we wish him well. York Office 01904 799 499 Langton House, 124 Acomb Road,York, YO24 4EY E: [email protected] 48 Jun/Jul 2014 FarmersMart Thirsk Office 01845 522 121 24 Finkle Street, Thirsk, North Yorks, YO7 1DA E: [email protected] Established in 1994, We're a hydraulics company who pride ourselves on highly skilled, professional work. We're based in Northallerton, and service all sectors of the Farming Community 7 Days a week 8 Anchorage Lane, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, DL7 8DX • Ram repairs • Seals • Hose assemblies • Fittings • Pumps • Valves • Motors Email: [email protected] Web: www.harkerhydraulics.co.uk To read more, visit www.farmers-mart.co.uk