Farm Name
Ruston
Farm
Bradbury & Co
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As agricultural specialists Bradbury & Co are pleased to
support David Shepherdson and look forward to working
closely with the team at Ruston Farm in the future.
Tel: 01377 241212 Fax: 01377 254087
Email: [email protected]
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58 Spring 2017 www.farmers-mart.co.uk
of the time the sheep took
up in summer, that sounded
the death knell to lamb
production.
‘The sheep were so intensive
and proved nearly a full-time
job even during summer when
we were busy with harvest and
contracting work. I was looking
for livestock that could look after
itself from July to November
without a lot of tending and I
bought half a dozen Highland
heifers from Robert Phillip in
Hellifield in 2008 to see how
they worked out.
‘My original plan was to have
a small herd just to keep the
grass tidy and sell pedigree
heifers every year running
the bullocks on but it soon
developed into something
more. I wasn’t expecting to
build up the herd as much as
we have but we now have
about 100 head on farm
currently. We now sell bullocks
to Dovecote Park for Waitrose
beef on their Highland scheme
that sees stock leave for
Christmas. We sent 28 bullocks
in November.’
David believes the success
of his Highland enterprise has
been helped in no small part by
his choice of bulls.
‘What I did at the start was to
get a really high quality bull in
order to get the biggest calves
possible. My original bull was
Rob Romack of Toloisk, once
again purchased from Robert.
He was colossal, the biggest
Highland bull I’ve ever seen
and he set us on the right
road. After three years we
bought another bull, Alasdair
of Auchtenny who was Royal
Welsh Show champion. He isn’t
as big as Rob Romack but very
long. We’ve now also bred a
great white bull calf of our own
Edward of Ruston.
‘We calve from April to June
and most of the cattle, certainly
all the suckler herd and stock
that hasn’t reached between
35-40 months, stay outside all
year round eating grass and
a nice barley straw. Bullocks
going in November are brought
inside at the end of September
and are fed silage and rolled
barley. The next year’s stock
destined for Dovecote Park will
come in after they have gone
and will be fed inside until April.
We just try to do a bit with them
ready for going.
‘We try to breed to get the
weight into them for beef. They
kill out at about 56 per cent
and last year the stock that
went averaged around 296kg
deadweight across the 28. The
previous year we averaged
just over 300kgs across 15
sent. We’re calendar-dictated
as we only send stock once a
year, which is different to when
you keep stock and send it a
following month to allow it to
achieve a better weight. We just
try to grow as big a beast as we
can within the time frame and
sometimes have to send stock
earlier than we would like as
they won’t take anything over
40 months.’
David is married to Tracy and
they have two children: Thomas
(14) and Amy (10). David’s
parents are David and Lesley.
He has two brothers, Gareth
and Gavin who work on a pig
farm in Staxton and a sister,
Laura who lives in the village.