Deciding to Raise Free Range Rare Breed Berkshire pigs thousands of miles from the farm I grew up on back in the UK has to be one of the craziest ideas I had - even my mum who is a pioneer of her time thinks I am a bit nuts lol. I am sure people thought the same of her when she wanted to start her own farm in the 1950’s.
My gran used to send mum to local farms as a child or put her on the milk float to help with milk deliveries but that is as far as her farming experience went.
With no farming background but determined to farm, she went to Agricultural college then with the help of her sister and a college friend she started Farming In 1957 on a 300 acre farm in Gisburn, Lancashire.
Starting with a small sheep flock of 40 ewes (breeding female sheep) and 10 dairy cows which gradually increased to about 60.
In 1965 she married my dad - when I was born the hospital asked her what her occupation was - she said Farmer, Fathers occupation - she replied Farmers husband - lol!
Together they raised sheep, cows and pigs. Dad also raised ducks and pheasants and we had a few chickens when we were small - I always remember asking if we could have chicken for Sunday dinner and we were told to go and catch one - I’m not sure if we did they were bantams and likely wouldn’t have had much meat on them anyway.
A lot of farming is learn as you go and trial and error - they taught themselves how to shear sheep from a book - dad shearing and mum frantically turning the pages to tell him what his next move was lol - I can only imagine the profanities!! It took them 20 mins to shear their first sheep.
In the early 1970’s they took some Hampshire (breed of sheep) tups (male sheep) to the Great Yorkshire Show - which is one of the biggest events in the agricultural calander. If you have ever seen a sheep show you will know that the sheep are led into the show ring on halters. This takes some training, normal people would do this before getting to the showground! I guess they didn’t have time so they trained them on the day - mum said they followed every class down the alleyways to the show ring. By the time it was their class the tups were trained! The judge even commented on how well trained they were and they came away with 3rd prize.
When we fed the sheep in the field dad used to put us In what was called “the box” it was a metal rectangle that hitched on to the tractor and was used to take bags of feed up the field for the sheep.
Us kids would open the bags and spill the food off the back for the sheep to eat while dad drove the tractor. It was always so bitterly cold and after we emptied the feed bags we would get in them to keep warm, I never remember having gloves.
Mum said she didn’t remember us doing that but she did remember putting us in a dustbin (garbage can) !! I was a bit shocked because I can’t remember this. Then she explained that it was only while they were milking and it wasn’t every day - oh that makes it ok then lol - maybe this is why I choose to block it out 😂😂😂. The bins weren’t especially for us they were used for cattle feed - lol not sure how that makes it better - I imagine we used to eat a lot of the feed! We were lucky we actually had a bin each we didn’t have to share! I am sure I don’t have any long-lasting damaging effects from that experience lol.
When the dairy needed a lot of expensive upgrades and repairs they sold the dairy herd and bought a few pigs, which they sold in 1980’s. Mum started to build up a small pedigree Simmental (breed of cow) herd along with some cross-bred beef cows.
I always remember when we moved the cows from field to field there was one that was always last - every time it was at the back of the herd. This is my last memory of our beef herd.
In May 2001 our farm suffered the devastating loss of all the cows and sheep to Foot and Mouth. 200 cows and 500 sheep plus lambs - some were born on the morning of their slaughter - this took a terrible toll on my dad - carrying the newborns to the vets and slaughter guys.
Mum said on Sunday morning they called the vet to check a potential foot and mouth case and by 4 pm the next day everything had gone. All the animals had been put down and the remains incinerated and cleared away.
Even after that terrible tragedy they built the farm back up - starting with a small flock of sheep. Now they are back up to around 450 breeding ewes and 120 head of cattle for finishing (they buy young beef animals and take them up to butcher weight)
Nowadays she spends a lot of her time keeping on top of the paperwork that British farmers have to do while my brother does the labour side. She lets him run the beef herd but she still actively keeps an eye on her sheep flock. She is a numbers woman and keeps track of all her sheep and lambs. It’s easier now that she has an electronic ear tag reader - my brother said she is like Darth Vader with a light Sabre when she goes out to the sheep pens to read the ear tags. In the old days we were the light sabres reading ear tags and mum wrote it down with a pen and paper.
An inspiration to us all mum has been farming for over 65 years and is the driving force behind her farm - and we all know who the boss is lol!