ROOKWITH HOUSE FARM 49
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Leyburn Livestock Auction Mart Richmond Road , Leyburn , North Yorkshire , DL8 5DP Tel : ( 01969 ) 623 167
• JUN / JUL 2024
ROOKWITH HOUSE FARM 49
Proud to support Edward Page of Rookwith House , wishing them continued success .
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from being 10 years old to going off to school and then college .
“ I ’ ve had a bit of a varied career with the sheep job in the 14 years since we took on Rookwith . I had a Mule-based flock of about 200 breeding ewes and bred some replacements . When we acquired Brymor Farm we got up to just shy of 1000 ewes , but I was getting naff all out of it , so I reduced our numbers .
“ I ’ ve been running 300 ewes including Beltex , Beltex X Texel and Blue Texels over more recent times with the idea of selling tups and females and top end quality fat lambs through Kirkby Stephen . I didn ’ t want to do any more than that at the time , as the Beltex is not the most straight forward breed . We were making the quality , rather than the quantity we ’ d had when we ’ d had 600 -1000 ewes .
“ We ’ d moved more into whitefaced sheep because we were getting a better lamb . That ’ s when I got interested using the Beltex and started liking the breed . The Beltex was developing fairly quickly from being that little square box and by then had a bit of stretch , better skins and better mobility . That was the type I liked . I had 150 Beltex , 50-60 Blue Texels and then the rest were three-quarter Beltex / Texel – and that ’ s what we had until last year .
The decision that Ed made to go back to 600 ewes came when Heather Stoney Grayshon joined Ed and her husband Martin on the farm in 2023 .
“ We were light on stock ,” say Ed . “ Heather had come from being the Lleyn Society ’ s promotions officer . I ’ d never been a big fan of them , but we were trying to keep a clean MV flock on the pures and Lleyns were probably the only route we could go , so we took on 300 Lleyn ewes last summer . This is now the mix at Rookwith . “ We currently produce quite a few Blue Texels and their tups aren ’ t the easiest to sell because in a world of whitefaced sheep
all the farmers think that with a Blue Texel tup you are going to get a black lamb .
“ I breed them because they provide a tighter skin and greater carcase than I ’ d ever seen . We produced this great Blue Texel tup . We ’ ve now crossed the Lleyns with a Blue Texel tup in order to keep the replacement gimmer lamb that with a Beltex X on it will produce us a quality commercial fat lamb .
“ We are currently saving 8-10 Blue Texel tups a year for that job and this year ’ s lambs are looking good .
“ We dropped out of MV accreditations a few years ago , but we ’ re now back with MV with my Blues and Beltex . We sell 40-50 Beltex and Beltex X tups a year , mainly off farm , or we ’ ll go to local marts and sell the rest . They ’ re a good little earner with regular repeat customers .
“ If we have anything I think looks good enough we ’ ll take it to the Elite Premier
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HUNDREDS OF ITEMS IN STOCK , NEW & USED russells . uk . com
DEPOTS AT : YO17 | DL6 | YO51 | DN14 | DL8 | DE6 | NN14 | DE4 | NG22 | LE14
Leyburn Livestock Auction Mart Richmond Road , Leyburn , North Yorkshire , DL8 5DP Tel : ( 01969 ) 623 167
Leyburn Mart sell on Friday ’ s :
• Weekly : 100 – 150 Rearing Calves & Stirks .
• Fortnightly : 100 - 400 store and Breeding Cattle .
• Autumn / Spring : Breeding Sheep .
• Fortnightly : Store lamb sales .
Wednesday ’ s :
Primestock day for
• Prime Cattle
• Cast Cows
• Sheep & Lambs
Leyburn Auction Mart is pleased to have Edward Page of Rookwith House Farm as a valued customer and wish him continued success .
Email : info @ leyburnauctions . com www . leyburnauctions . com Auctioneer / Manager : Stephen Walker 07866 358 130