MAXIMISING what is produced at Bolton Park Farm up above Bolton Abbey is livestock farmer Steven Crabtree ’ s aim . He ’ s in the process of fully changing over from Swaledales to North Country Cheviots , he ’ s taken on native bred cattle on an SSSI area and is moving his other cattle towards native breeds . He has become convinced that grass is the way forward .

‘ It ’ s grass that we are realising is our future ,’ says Steven . ‘ We can grow grass and we can grow silage that we now put in the clamp . We don ’ t do any bales because when I sat down and costed it out they were costing us about £ 30 to make our round bales and I can buy them in cheaper through another farm , saving not just the cost but the time – and increasing the quality because of the ME value we are buying compared to what we were making .’

‘ We take our two cuts , firstly around June 20 and with a second in mid-August . We mow around 90 acres each time and have our own forager and the help of some good neighbours . Grass for silage and for grazing is now a big thing for us .’

Bolton Park Farm , which is tenanted , runs to around 680 acres , which Steven describes as being mainly rocky grassland .

‘ We have probably around 250 acres of reasonable grassland with 90 acres of meadow land , the rest is moorland and regarded as severely disadvantaged . The biggest transformation has been around 150 acres of what was virgin bracken land that was 6 feet high which we reclaimed back to grassland . It ’ s not the best grassland in the world , but it ’ s better than bracken and adds to what we have overall .’

‘ We sprayed the bracken using helicopters and Unimogs and basically turned it from being horrible , worthless ground to us , to something reasonable . Our intention was to totally eradicate the bracken and we did that through spraying , liming , P & K feeding , reseeding and grazing .’

Steven ’ s breeding ewes and sucker herd numbers are much reduced from the days of headage payments .

‘ Numbers were everything twenty years ago and we peaked at 1400 ewes and 200 suckler cows . At that time it was all about how much land we could get and we still have land that we own elsewhere , but our breeding numbers are now at 750 ewes and 100 sucklers , so we ’ re roughly down by 50 per cent on what we once had .’

‘ We used to use 70 tonnes of concentrate on the sheep , we now use 20

tonnes , so pro rata we are better off , we are not as intensive , not pushing as hard and we ’ ve now got grass that we wouldn ’ t normally have had with having the bigger numbers .’

‘ We are now mainly trying to fatten stock off grass . We are moving further towards the North Country Cheviot sheep and native breed cattle , giving the sheep a little bit of concentrate later in the year when they need it . It ’ s about growing livestock as cheaply as possible without cutting corners and grass-fed is now a popular way forward with silage and concentrates to finish them .’

Steven started moving on to Cheviots from Swaledales about 15 years ago and now produces Cheviot X Mules put to the Texel tup .

‘ We ’ re swinging away from the Swaledale . We ’ d been with Swaledales for years , but it was Bill Elliott at Hethpool near Wooler who told me to ‘ put the Cheviots to the Blue heed ’ the Bluefaced Leicester tup . I originally thought no , but did it eventually and the Cheviot Mules are fantastic sheep .’

‘ What we ’ ve found is there is a ready market for the Texel on to the Cheviot Mule gimmer which then go as a gimmer lamb or are sold as fat lambs . We don ’ t take them to shearlings .’

Lambing starts on April 1 and Steven says it is largely all over and done in three weeks , another benefit of having less ewes .

Continued on page 54

SHEEP SCANNING SERVICES ACROSS THE NORTH

Agent for J G Animal Health

Minerals & Vitamin Nutritional Supplements . Specialising in a range of Premier drenches for cattle & sheep .