After many years of trying to combine arable contracting and sheep farming together, it became clear that we either needed to sell the sheep flock or increase dramatically.
We actually did both!
In 2005 Geraint Powell came to lamb our North Country Mules and has been with us ever since.
Between us, we decided there was potential in the area to set up a large flock but that mules were not the right breed of sheep for this. We needed a ewe that was able to perform off extensive grassland, managed under various environmental agreements and was able to lamb outside with minimal assistance. Having both worked in New Zealand, we were convinced that the Romney was the right ewe for us. So we sold our flock of 650 Mules and managed to buy 700 Romney ewes, of varying types and ages from wherever we could get them.
In 2008 we were lucky to be offered grazing on a further 700 acres of extensive permanent pasture, along with the management of a 60 cow suckler herd. This enabled us to employ a second person to work with Geraint.
We have now managed to increase our Romney flock to 3000 head by retaining our ewe lambs each year.
Over the next couple of years, we intend to increase to 3600 ewes as this is the number we would be able to stock on the grassland we now have available to us.