From June
2001 the stock on their two units, totaling 400 acres, attained full organic
status enabling their Lleyn lambs to be sold direct to one of the country's
leading organic meat companies. Due to Foot and Mouth disease the organic
sector failed to readies its full potential and the Bennetts are looking forward
to there first normal trading year.
Alun Bennett farms in partnership with his wife Helen and his parents, David
and Audrey Bennett. They run two holdings at Meifod near Welshpool namely
Upper Hall and Tyn-y-Coed at Pont Robert.
The good
grass-growing land runs between 300-750ft and also grows 50 acres of spring
barley and 20 acres of organically produced vegetables - mainly carrots and
swedes. There is a milking herd of 130 Holsteins plus 60 followers along with
40 store cattle. The Bennett family also breed pedigree Charollais and run
a flock of 70 ewes under the YYY prefix.
"Realising there was an increasing demand for organic food we attended
a farm walk near Oswestry. We were impressed with the farm's grassland management
and the way the land was responding to an organic system," says Alun
Bennett.
Having decided to switch to an organic system, and with the anticipation of
premium prices for organic produce, the Bennetts began their three-year conversion
in June 1998.
"We are very happy with the way the stock and the land have responded
to organic management. It does pose a challenge, particularly with cereals
and sheep. With sheep you have to get away from depending on drenching lambs
but it's surprising how you adapt your management.
"Lionel Organ, fellow Charollais breeder but equally staunch supporter
of the Lleyn, encouraged the Bennetts to try some Lleyns.
"We had seen the breed and liked the look of them. Previously we'd
had a range of breeds and crosses including Mules and Suffolk-cross ewes but
we were looking for something that would enable us to breed its own replacements
and was of a smaller type."
A first visit to the Lleyn Sheep Society sale at Gaerwen in 1996 led to the
purchase of 40 ewe lambs along with a five-year-old tup bred by well known
north Wales breeder Vernon Jones.
"We bred from the ewe lambs in the first season and they did extremely
well - well enough to convince us that this was the breed for us. And we still
have the tup. He's 10-years old now, he's still got most of his teeth and
he worked last autumn."
The following year saw Alun Bennett and his wife Helen back at Gaerwen. This
time they added another 40 ewe lambs and 60 ewes of varying ages. But he had
already made a mental note of some of the high priced females sold the previous
year and was keen to tap into those bloodlines on their second buying mission.
"Although we bought over a wide price range it did include a few exceptionally
good ewes that we paid a bit extra for. They were from a very old established
flock and have
done a very good job for us."
The original
plan was to cross the Lleyn ewes with Texel tups to produce a half-bred commercial
ewe.
"But once
we began to breed the Lleyns pure we realised they were everything you could
ask for in a ewe," says Alun Bennett.
All the Lleyns are
now bred pure. Ewes are flushed on dairy pastures prior to tups being turned
in on October 5th. Ewes are housed from mid-January and feeding starts about
seven weeks pre-lambing. The ration, offered with ad-lib silage, is home-mixed
and comprises a third distillers grains, a third oats, a third beet pulp plus
some seaweed meal and limestone flour.
Lambing starts on March 1st and ewes and lambs are turned out immediately
providing weather conditions are favorable. Trough feeding is not usually
continued once ewes are at grass. Lambing percentage is around 190%.
Worm control presents the biggest challenge to all shepherds managing their flocks to organic standards. At Tyn-y-Coed all the ewes receive a permitted drench pre-lambing. Faecal worm counts are taken to provide a guide to levels of infestation in the ewe flock.
The Bennetts
operate a "safe grazing" system. "We graze sheep
on long-term pasture and only on land that has not carried sheep in the previous
year".This
method of worm control is worked in conjunction with a policy of only worming
lambs that are showing obvious signs of having a heavy worm burden.
"We only
dose lambs with dirty backsides; but last summer the majority of our lambs
were not dosed at all."
The Bennetts
are very keen to select bloodlines from within the flock that are showing
clear signs of resistance to worm infestation. Last year two of the best tup
lambs were retained - both showed natural resistance to worms and were ARR/ARR
genotypes. They will be sold as shearlings this year and will probably be
entered in the new "organic" section that has been scheduled for
entries at the breed society's Ross-on-Wye sale.
All male lambs are
kept entire. Last years prime lambs started to be sold from late summer. They
were sold direct to Graig Farm Meats, one of the country's leading organic
meat marketing company's based in mid-Wales. They averaged 20kg deadweight
with a third in the "U" grade conformation and two thirds falling
in the "R" grade category. The Bennetts are still convinced that
the Organic route is the right direction with their lambs averaging £15
a head over conventional lamb.
"The more we keep the Lleyn the more we like them. They are an easily managed breed, great mothers and excellent milkers. And we have ewes that we bought in 1997 as three and four year old that will lamb this year as eight-year-olds. You can't ask for better value from a ewe than that," says Mr Bennett.