20 October, 2013

The BBC’s primetime countryside programme, Countryfile, contacted us in early September about appearing in one of their episodes. We were really excited by this opportunity to showcase the Shropshire sheep breed – but also a bit nervous. Animals can be very unpredictable at the best of times! We needn’t have worried though: The day went really well. The sun shone, the sheep all behaved themselves and the ram, Special Agent, proved that he is totally uninhibited when it comes to tupping in front of the camera! Matt Baker was also filmed learning some butchery skills – producing some tasty looking chops from one of our Shropshire lambs. These were then cooked at the Ludlow Food Festival. The chef was full of praise for the quality of the meat and pointed out the marbling in the meat, which keeps it moist and succulent. The programme featuring our flock was broadcast on 29th September and I think it was a good  advert for Shropshire sheep and their many talents.

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19 October, 2013

This summer we took some of our sheep to three local shows in Shropshire. First was Burwarton Show, a very popular event over in the east of the county. Seven other exhibitors were showing Shropshire sheep there this year, so the competition was hot! We took five sheep and every animal came home with rosettes. Our ram lamb, Alderton Fauntleroy (or “Roy” for short – pictured on the far left with Pippa) not only won his class but also took the Shropshire breed championship. We’re very proud of him – as well as looking good, he also scores very well for growth and carcass traits monitored by the independent Signet recording Scheme. Roy’s Terminal Sire index of 199 means that he is ranked within the top 5% of the breed for fast growth and desirable carcass traits.  We will retain him as a future stock sire. Our sheep also did well at Oswestry Show, where ewe lamb, Patience, was reserve champion Shropshire, and at Minsterley Show where we also came home with a good number of red, blue and yellow rosettes.

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14 May, 2013

We‘ve just arranged our annual scanning visit, when a technician from Signet Farm Business Consultancy will visit our farm to take ultrasound scans of this season’s lambs. The technician measures the muscle depth and fat depth in the loin area (where lamb chops come from) to help us identify the animals that have the meatiest conformation. We use this information to help us choose which animals to retain for breeding. We also record the weights of lambs at birth and at regular intervals to weaning to help us identify those with the fastest rate of growth. Signet analyses all the data we collect and sends us reports which rank our animals according to their genetic merit. This service is available to sheep producers throughout the UK. We have found it extremely useful and have been recording this performance data for our flock since 2007.

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12 May, 2013

We visited Germany with a group of other British breeders of Shropshire sheep at the end of April. Shropshires are well known as “the tree friendly breed” and are used extensively by German tree growers to graze down the herbage between trees in their conifer plantations. We visited several farmers with Shropshires, including the owner of one of the largest flocks in Germany: Peter Quast runs over 200 sheep and his Shropshires were of a very high quality.  We were delighted to find that one of Peter’s stock rams is a son of Alderton Neville. We exported Neville as a shearling ram (one year old) to Hans Sandmann in 2010.   Later in the trip, we met Hans and he was able to tell us that he was very pleased with the way Neville developed into a ram with tremendous length and stature.

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