Sometimes – No Plan is the Best Plan

by Fiona Sloan

Easy care is a term that we all hear regularly these days and to those of us who grew up with shepherds and stocksmen on the farm it was something which, if there were sufficient staff, was an unnecessary concern.  Now, it means a way to manage a profitable enterprise with fewer members of staff, thus still allowing time for “other things” which are more important.                

David Mactaggart's efforts to reform his traditional system earned him the title of Sheep Farmer of the Year in 2006 but he also had the foresight to see that the things in life, which are most important, need to fit around the sheep.   

David and his wife Juliette bought their tenanted farm Hallrule at Bonchester Bridge from the Wells Estate when it came on the market in 1997.  They had moved there in 1988 and by 1991 had no option but to to make the shepherd redundant and do all of the work themselves.                

“I wasn't a shepherd!” says David.  “Every mistake I made was a sharp learning curve!  I did however have the advantage of being allowed to think outside the box, which enabled me to try things, which a “traditional shepherd” may have considered a bit bizarre.”    

The 1200 acres at Hallrule and part of neighbouring Town o' Rule is one large unit.  It has the advantage of allowing the movement of stock from one end of the farm to the other singlehandedly, with the help of some good dogs.                     

David set about looking at changing the sheep system at Hallrule and armed with a blank sheet of paper and a willingness to find an easy care system, which would allow him to run the enterprise successfully with only the help of an assistant (who does the cattle and tractor work) he plumped for May lambing!  The idea seemed sound to him, with all or most of the sheep remaining outside all the year round.  Time, stress and feed costs were cut and the prospect of lambing in short sleeves and sunglasses seemed appealing.             

Despite words of caution from friends and neighbours to try some of the ewes out on the system first, David decided that doing two lambings was a situation he wanted to avoid.  Although some severe east blizzards arrived late during the first lambing, he swallowed the losses and continued the following year.  May lambing, has now become “the norm” at Hallrule, as it has now on many other farms throughout the country.   

The 1500 ewes are kept on the hill for most of the winter.  To prevent having to cart feed a distance during the winter the silage is stored in an Ag Bag silage roll on the hill.  This means that the ewes have a nearby source of food and only one vehicle is required to make it up the hill during heavy snow.   

Having historically run Mules, David looked at the type of sheep he was using and after a great deal of research decided that the potential for the Romney breed on the farm was good.  He set about sourcing top Romney rams from Marcus Maxwell to cross over the current Mule stock to eventually breed a 3/4 Romney ewe as the base ewe for the flock.            

“The Romney ewe has an outstanding bond immediately with its lambs, which makes it an easy care sheep at lambing in particular,”  says David.                         

“Anything that has problems at lambing time is culled out to prevent recurring problems.”                 

The Romney ewe can live on rougher pasture and while the singles are split before lambing into fields with a stocking ratio of around 10 to the acre, the twos and threes are run together less densely, but no ewes receive concentrate at any time – only grass.    

The use of the Romney cross is set to continue on the farm to enable the system to further develop, which, should the need arise, is able to tick over on its own for a time without too much intervention.  Nowhere was this more evident when two of the most important things in David's life were lost to him in the last year.  His 17 year old daughter Sarah-Jane was lost to Meningitis sadly followed by his wife Juliette when she lost her battle with cancer six months later.             

In the grand scale of things, no matter how important we think our farming enterprises are they are not our life!   

In memory of Sarah-Jane and Juliette, David has volunteered to navigate a team for the 3 peak 24hr challenge on 18th June organized by Logan Brown of Border Livestock Exchange.  Andy Scrogal, Bill Rustric, Mike Jones  and Logan's wife  Karen who is in charge of cooking and Vaseline applications make up the team! Can't wait to see the pictures on that one!!  All money raised will go to The Meningitis Trust, Macmillan Cancer Relief and Cancer Research UK.   

So all of you shepherds reading this, while you're waiting for a ewe to lamb in the middle of the night, make good use of your time and send a donation to David Mactaggart, Hallrule, Bonchester Bridge Hawick TD9 8JF or Border Livestock Exchange 54-58 Marygate,  Berwick-on-Tweed, TD15 1BN or visit www.meningitis-trust.tributefunds.com and remember sometimes there are more important things in life.