44 CRIMPLE HEAD FARM OCT / NOV 2020 • farmers-mart . co . uk
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‘ This year is the first that I have kept back a proportion of the Texel Dalesbred gimmer lambs . I ’ m very pleased with them too . I shear all the replacement gimmer lambs after weaning and that allows me the opportunity to see body condition . If I ’ m not happy with the lamb I ’ ve sheared by a few weeks later it will go . I ’ m a firm believer that you have to be ruthless with your replacements because at the end of the day that is going to determine the quality of your next crop of lambs .’
Richard is also aware of the farm ’ s limitations over flock numbers of breeding ewes and this is another reason why he wants the most productive sheep possible .
‘ I shear all the replacement gimmer
lambs after weaning and that allows me the opportunity to see body condition ’
‘ You wouldn ’ t be able to get 2000 ewes on this farm purely because of the winter conditions . It ’ s too wet . The Farm is largely on clay .’
‘ We ’ ve pushed lambing back a bit . All our Dalesbreds now lamb in April , and we lamb as many as possible outside . Last year all the singles lambed outside with the Dalesbred twins and triplets inside . The Texel X start in mid-March indoors , but the Texel X Mules , if the weather allows , are perfectly capable of lambing outdoors .’
Richard held a highly successful sale this year of his separate pedigree Texel Crimple Head flock that he had started in 2010 .
‘ I ’ m at the stage in my life now with a young family where I don ’ t want the pedigree flock considerations to take my eye off the ball over the commercial flock . I started with the pedigree flock before I came back full-time . I ’ d gained a lot of interest in the breed through great breeders Mark Keighley and John Mellin . I ’ d sheared for John and got the bug for breeding tups . I built them up and in the past couple of years I ’ ve been lambing 55 pedigree ewes .’
‘ All I have kept is three or four ewe lambs of this year ’ s crop to breed our own replacement lambs and I have a few unregistered ewes that will breed our own rams for the farm .’
‘ I have some of my own stock , where I previously had the Texels , on some rented land , and I will probably run about 180 Texel X ewes on there .’
The other side of the livestock operation is cattle . The Wilsons run a suckler herd of 100 Limousin X calving to a Limousin bull .
‘ We sell the bulls and heifers as stores at around 10-13 months at Wharfedale ( heifers ) and Skipton ( bulls ). We start selling around Christmas and the majority of the herd calves in January . I ’ m involved with the cattle in such as calving and getting cattle ready for sale but my day-to-day is the sheep . My uncle Martin is with the cattle as is James ( Gill ) who has worked with us four days a week for many years . Martin is also our main player on the farm in our environmental and stewardship schemes .’
Phoenix Farm , next door to Crimple Head , is where Richard ’ s grandfather Michael lives with his wife Mandy . Martin lives next door to his father . Richard , Alex and Charlie live at Crimple Head Farm , his parents David and Kathryn live on the farm in a lodge .