Lleyns on the East Yorkshire Coast

In an area dominated by arable land, father and son team, David and Pete Vickerton, are running a thriving livestock unit. The family owns and rents 300 acres situated on the East Coast of Yorkshire, only a stones’ throw away from the beach.

Grange Farm has experienced a complete change of direction in the past 10 years, from running a large suckler herd in 2001, with only a handful of sheep, to a unit supporting 340 breeding ewes and only 10 suckler cows and followers, which are likely to disappear shortly.

Pete explained the transition. ‘Lleyn were first introduced to the farm in 1997, when my father bought 10 ewes and a ram from local breeders, Peter and Mary Nettleton. ‘He’d read articles in the press and attended a North and East Lleyn Breeders Open Day event, at which he decided that he liked the look of the sheep and would give them a try.’

‘We joined the Society in 1999, and by 2001 the flock had grown steadily to 27 ewes. The mainstay of the farm at the time was a beef suckler and finishing unit, running 200 head of cattle, but due to management issues we decided to cut back on the cattle and increase the sheep.’

‘Changing over to sheep has meant that I have been able to do a bit of work for my brother, who runs a landscape and fencing business.’

‘Before we kept Lleyn we used to have Scotch Halfbreds, but we found the Lleyn ewes so much more ‘user friendly’. They are a smaller sheep that is easier to handle, really cheap to feed and can still produce the lambs we want’.

The original purchase from the Nettleton’s was joined by another 60 ewes, when the Nettleton flock dispersed in 2005. The majority of the homebred females were retained, so that numbers could be increased rapidly. Good quality rams were bought, and the family concentrated on producing a ewe that fits their farming system.

‘50% of our purebred lambs go off the farm as fat, so although we keep the Lleyn for her maternal abilities and easy management, she also needs to produce lambs with a good carcase.

‘We’ve kept the slightly larger ewes, so our average breeding ewes are now around 70kg. We find they still retain all the easy lambing, milky, maternal traits, but also produce a slightly larger lamb that satisfies the demand of our local abattoir.’

The farm now supports 330 Lleyn ewes, and 100 gimmer lambs, all of which are purebred and registered with the Society. The ‘better’ half of the flock is bred pure and is MV Accredited. 10 Charollias ewes and a ram are also kept along with the MV ewes, to produce replacement rams for the commercial Lleyn flock.

‘We like to use the Charollais on the commercial flock as the progeny are still easy for the ewes lamb, but they finish a little bit quicker than the pure ones
Lambing percentage is a little lower with the commercial flock, at about 180%, but we treat them a bit harsher than the pedigree sheep, which lamb at 200%, weaning 175%.

‘We’ve lambed a lot of shearlings over the past few years, whilst we’ve been building the flock, and they have performed really well. We’ve found them much easier to lamb than the Scotch Halfbreds we used to keep. The ewes don’t mess around and are very quick lambing. The lambs are up in minutes and are soon sucking.

‘Last year we lambed 280 ewes in 21 days, and only three ewes were not in lamb. Dad does the night shift, and when we used to lamb the Halfbreds I would often have to get up in the night to help him lamb a difficult ewe. This year I didn’t have to get up once.’
‘All the finished lambs go direct to the local abattoir, which is only 15 minutes down the road. We are averaging 20.5 - 21kg, at R and U grades. We know the pence per kilo, and hung up, the Lleyn lambs make the same as the Charollais crosses.’

If you would like to learn more about the farm and it’s flock of Lleyn Sheep, please come along to the North & East Lleyn Breeders Club Open Day on Sunday 8th August 2010, from 12pm - 5pm. There will be a Lleyn and Lleyn cross carcase demo and trade stands, as well as a chance to look round the farm, or go for a paddle on the beach! For more information please contact Linda Barnard on 01653 698580