Firs Farm
farming business is made up
of sheep, cattle, poultry and
agricultural contracting. Firs
Farm is situated on Ringinglow
Road that was originally built
as a turnpike from Sheffield
to Chapel-en-le-Frith and
Buxton. Angela tells of the
importance of sheep to their
farm enterprise.
‘Sheep make up around 50
per cent of our trade and we
have 500 mainly Mule ewes
that we put to Meatlinc and
Suffolk tups to provide fat
lambs destined for Mr Pickles
and Bakewell livestock market.
We spread our lambing into
two batches in February and
April as this brings better
cashflow, which is all important.
We get our Meatlincs from
George Fell and one of our two
daughters, Helen, breeds a few
Suffolks. We keep some of our
ewe lambs as replacements
and also buy around 50
replacements a year. The ram
lambs go as wethers.’
Belgian Blue X cows make
up the largest share of the
Battyes’ herd of 35 suckler
cows and followers with the
herd calving all year round.
‘We put an Aberdeen
Angus bull to the heifers for
ease of first time calving and
a Limousin bull to the cows.
We have some homebred
Aberdeen Angus cows too.
We will a lso buy in store cattle
to fatten in order to keep up
with Mr Pickles’ demand. Our
beef cattle are usually finished
at between 15-22 months and
we’re supplying around 34
beasts a year.’
The poultry enterprise
is quiet at this time of the
year. Everything gets under
way again in May when the
day-old goslings arrive on
farm, followed by the turkey
chicks. They are all grown
for the Christmas market and
retailed direct from Firs Farm.
It’s a traditional enterprise
that started way back before
Angela and Jim moved here
over 30 years ago.
‘Jim’s grandma Alice Battye
started with poultry over 80
years ago to earn a bit of
extra money at Christmas. We
now rear 250 turkeys and 170
geese. Everyone gets involved
when it comes around to
preparing the birds. We have
a big social day for family
and friends who help out just
before Christmas and I always
give everyone a good dinner.
All orders are collected from
here on 23 December. It’s
chaos but we try to make it as
much towards organised chaos
as we can, and it’s all over
in one day. Our turkeys are
various strains of white birds.’
Jim recalls how he
was introduced to goose
preparation.
‘I started plucking at six
years old. You had a goose
chucked on your knees and
were just told to get on with
it.’
John had a similar
experience but also looks back
fondly to how he managed to
get out of school at the time.
‘Helen and I never went to
school in the last couple of
days before the Christmas
break. We missed school
because of the plucking days.
I don’t think we missed much
though as we never seemed to
do much at school in the last
few days of term anyway.’
John handles the agricultural
contracting and cereal growing
www.farmers-mart.co.uk Spring 2017 73