Harsh Conditions 1000ft up on Mid Wales Hills

Living in Cornwall, Gill and I are used to horizontal driving rain in November, so that didn’t make much of an impression; but the water flowing over the waterlogged ground, the short grass and long rushes did. Brynowen is a harsh environment. The Lleyn ewes seemed happy enough, though, and the last batch of fat lambs were phlegmatically grazing near the house. So, in we went for a Welsh tea with Christine Lewis, a (very) local girl. Here is the story of Christine, Brynowen and Lleyn.

‘I was involved with the family farm along with my father and brother from the time I left school. From 1980 onwards, we took advantage of the grants available to drain and reclaim the 213 acres of rough grazing belonging to the main farmstead. We fenced the land into 15 acre parcels and planted shelterbelts. In 1989 I built a new house on the site of the original shepherd’s cottage and rented it out for holiday lets.’

Christine told us how she had met Bernie in Australia in 1980, how they had kept in touch over many years, and finally married in 1993. They decided to live in Mid Wales as Bernie found Perth too hot! He set up in business as a plumbing/heating engineer and Christine worked as a procurement officer for Quality Cottages, still helping out on the family farm with lambing, shearing and so on.

‘In 2000, my father took a step back from farming and I was offered the hill farm on a farm business tenancy. This seemed like an offer too good to refuse, despite the fact that farming was going through an extremely bleak period with lambs selling at 70p /kg liveweight and BSE taking a heavy toll. It soon became obvious that we had quite a challenge ahead of us if we wanted to develop the farm and, by now, we had 2 young children - our son Floyd (3 years) and daughter India (9 months).

We felt that cattle were a step too far at this stage, due to the initial capital outlay required for housing, machinery etc. In addition, the farm is situated 1000 – 1200 ft above sea level. It has a very heavy, peaty soil, is east facing and very slow in Spring, so choice of sheep breed was critical.

We decided that we needed to find a breed of sheep that was:
easy to handle (as Bernie couldn’t spend too much time on the farm);
reasonably hardy and not too hungry;
prolific, with good mothering abilities to maximise the number of lambs sold;
able to produce a quality butcher’s lamb whilst also enabling us to breed our own replacements to maintain a healthy closed flock and keep our costs to a minimum.
We soon realised that maybe we were looking for a breed of sheep that hadn’t yet been invented!

Whilst scratching my head, I remembered being drawn to the Lleyn stand at the Royal Welsh Show and, after ransacking the office, realised that I had picked up
information on the breed at the last three Shows. After reading over the material, I thought that maybe this superewe had been invented after all.

The following September, I drove to the Gaerwen Sale (the last and a very wet one) to acquaint myself with the breed. I was very impressed with what I saw. I just loved the look of them!

My mind was made up and, a few days later, we visited the Ross Sale where we purchased 40 ewe lambs with tight skins, good conformation and very pretty faces from Flock 703 (Roger Lightfoot) and 10 yearlings of a similar type from Alun Morgan (Flock 922). We went on to purchase 65 2-year old ewes from Alan Jones (Flock 451- founded on ewes from Flock 43 (Tom Rees Roberts)) which included 10 flashy ewes from Charles Sackville Hamilton (Flock 172). Our first 2 stock rams were purchased from Noel Baseley (Flock 730) at his dispersal sale. We were really pleased with our first consignment. Looking back with a few years experience of the breed, I realise how important it was that we selected good foundation stock.

After our first lambing season, it soon became apparent that this was the way forward. We were amazed at how milky the ewes were, how they didn’t need any assistance at lambing with mis-presentations etc and how lively the lambs were. At first we thought that the lambs didn’t look that hardy due to their tight skins but the environment in which we farm would put any breed to the test and it amazed us how tough they actually are. They just want to live!

Due to the prolificacy of the breed, within 3 years we replaced all of our original hardy assorted ewes with Lleyn and the following year, after a rigorous selection process, offered our first consignment of ewe lambs at Ross Sale in 2004. We made £80 per head (when fat lambs were fetching £40-45).

At present, we lamb 250 ewes. Most of them are bred pure. We place huge emphasis on performance recording and any ewe that suffers from prolapse, mastitis, persistent lameness, or is
cosmetically below par, is turned to a Charollais ram to produce early maturing fat lambs. We overwinter approximately 140 ewe lambs on tack to keep on as replacements and sell as yearlings.

The ewes are housed 4-6 weeks before lambing, depending on the weather, and lamb during March/April. They are fed on haylage and concentrates.

We do not flush our ewes pre-tupping as we never have a surplus of grass in the autumn but, in spite of this, they consistently scan at 180% without too many triplets. We find that they back up well after taking the ram and hold their body condition into late pregnancy.

We sell around 70 shearlings and 40 ewe lambs each year at Society Sales along with around 20 rams which we sell at Society Sales and from home. Our surplus male lambs are sold live at Welshpool Livestock Auction, all at 43 kg or more liveweight, straight off grass and, due to their good conformation and tight skins, they regularly command a premium over Mule cross lambs.

Last year we became involved with Signet recording. Performance recording has always been high on our agenda anyway, but through Signet recording we will be able to speed up the improvement process and have figures to prove genetic ability for economically-important traits such as maternal ability, growth rates, lean meat etc. This should help with the marketing of our stock as the trend for purchasing on figures is growing.

The last 9 years certainly have been challenging with two outbreaks of FMD and the Bluetongue restrictions of 2008 but we have made steady progress and we owe this to the Lleyn breed which has more than exceeded our expectations as a superewe.

I am optimistic about the future and feel that things are only going to get easier from now on. Our son, Floyd, is now 12 years old and his interest is growing all the time, especially after realising that sheep farming is not just a girlie thing! Floyd is very keen to start a small herd of cattle and I feel this would help to improve the fertility of the farm. It is on the short term agenda.

Finally, I feel that there is a huge potential for draft Lleyn ewes. They are so versatile and cross well with any breed to produce a top quality prime lamb, whilst at the same time enabling us to produce a maternal crossbred ewe and all on a low cost system – what more could you ask for?’

After enjoying the splendid hospitality of the Lewis family, we set off towards Nefyn and the Society AGM just as Floyd jumped onto his quad bike and disappeared into the gloom, splashing his way across the fields to check the sheep, a wonderful pictorial memory of our visit.

Christine Lewis & John Adams