The Farmers Mart Oct/Nov 2015 - Issue 42 | Page 42

Brook House Farm

Blazing their
way ahead
Chris Berry talks with Bentham-based
Raymond Heigh about the Zwartbles breed
»»Twenty years ago the
Zwartbles breed of sheep from
Northern Netherlands was first
imported and during the past
decades it has won over many
farmers and has found its own
niche. One of the directors of the
Zwartbles Sheep Association is
Raymond Heigh of Brook House
Farm in Bentham where he farms
in partnership with his parents
Robert and Wendy.
‘I took up with Zwartbles ten
years ago at the time when we
had just come out of dairying.
I had been around cows all
my life and we had up to 60
Holstein Friesians but the price
was just too low for us to carry
on. The farm needed a new
dairy set-up and it just wasn’t
worth it. The cost to reinvest
would have been around a
quarter of a million.’

Today’s farming operation
across their 130+ acres runs to
beef store cattle and sheep.
The cattle are generally
bought-in from Bentham, plus
some from Kirkby Stephen
at 8-10 months old and are
taken through to 24 months.
They have about 45 to sell
during the back-end. The
main sheep flock is 170 Texel
X or Suffolk X ewes and a
few Mules. Lambing takes
place from January to March
as they try to hit the early
lamb market. Replacements
are usually bought-in rather
than providing their own and
this year they have bought
100 store lambs because of
the plentiful supply of grass.
The Zwartbles are Raymond’s
individual enterprise within
the farm partnership.

‘When the cows went in 2005
it was really weird. I always
used to get up at 5.30 in the
morning and then I was out of
the door again at 4 o’clock in the
afternoon to get the cows back
into the parlour. I wouldn’t go
back to it now but when you’re
doing it you just go along with
the routine. We made a move
towards beef and upping the
sheep numbers and I was also
looking for something different,
which is where the Zwartbles
came in. The white blaze on
black attracted me and it is a
good-looking breed with a lot of
good qualities. It is a lean meat
sheep with a good taste to their
lamb.’
‘What you want on them is
a compromise between their
naturally stockier frame and their
taller variation. If you just keep

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42 Oct/Nov 2015 www.farmers-mart.co.uk

getting them up and up you get
less meat on them. They’re now
keeping a good shape right
across the breeders in the UK
and that’s one of the reasons
why they are getting a bit more
noticed when stood in interbreed
competitions. They are also
renowned as milky mothers.’
Raymond currently has 25
breeding ewes. It’s quite a
healthy rise on the 16 he had last
year and as clear an indication
you