Making their own path in breeding tups purely targeting for the commercial market is the aim of the Scott family based at the upland Farm, Falla, near Jedburgh.
Willie and his wife, Wendy, son Finlay and daughter Millie lamb 350 Texel and Suffolk ewes, and 800 commercial ewes which are made up of a mixture of Texel Mules, Scotch Mules and Suffolk cross Mules.
The pure Texels arrived in 1997 and all members of the family are involved in selecting tups and breeding decisions.
“Texels do a good job for us breeding wise as we’ve never had a caesarean in the flock. They produce both great females and fat lambs and good breeding commercial shearling tups that we can sell. Texels were the initial commercial sheep that led the trade, and they still attract strong prices when selling sheep cast unlike a lot of other breeds.
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“We did think at one stage that the Texel shearling market was flooded at Kelso, which is why we started selling Suffolks last year. We had always bred Suffolks to tup our Texel Mule ewes so we decided to increase Suffolk numbers and start selling them at Kelso too.
“All our shearling rams are used as lambs at home which gives buyers a bit more confidence,” Willie said, adding that the farm sells 90 shearlings per year through Kelso, Hexham, Longtown and privately.
This year, the farm has another bumper entry of 50 unregistered Texel shearlings entered for Ring 18 and eight unregistered Suffolks to be sold through Ring 14 at Kelso.
Last year, their 50 Texels averaged £960 at Kelso, with a further 20 sold privately and the remaining eight sold at Hexham to cash in at £980, which meant they had nothing available to sell at Longtown. In the run-up to the sales, they are are fed a Davidson Animal Feeds’ reiver grower nuts, which boasts17.% protein with the lambs also fed a high-protein feed straight from weaning.
“Some folk seem to think feeding is a ‘dirty’ word and take pride in not feeding their stock.
“That’s fine if you have the ground to be able to do that. However, we have poorer ground here and suffer with trace element deficiencies so we have developed a system that works for us,” he added.
The business also relies on buying in 60 Scotch Mule ewe lambs which are sourced privately from Shitlington Hall, which alongside the farm’s own Texel cross/Suffolk cross ewe lambs are put to Texel and Suffolk sires. “We allow the heavier hoggs to go to the tup as we feel they are fit and ready enough. It is also a long time to keep them if they are not tupped,” added Willie.
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Texel Mules are put to some of Falla’s own home-bred Suffolk tups.
“Suffolks have good growth rates, are easy lambed and have high milk output, and there seems to be a demand for selling Suffolk shearlings.
“Previously, we had tried the Charollais cross Suffolk, and we thought they were tremendous sheep, but there was just no demand for the cross tups unfortunately,” he added. All ewes are vaccinated with Heptavac P and usually Enzovax. Ewes are also vaccinated with Footvax to reduce the risk of footrot which can be an issue here due to the wet weather.
Lambing kicks off mid-March with the pure Texels followed by the commercial ewes early April.
All ewes lamb are inside with the aim being to have them out to grass within 24-48 hours. If there are any issues, the ewe is marked for culling and her lambs will not be retained.
Most years, scanning percentages work out at 196% and 198% in the commercial flock and around 165% for the pures, of which 40% will be gimmers.
“It is a hard balance trying to push the lambing percentage up, but gimmers do better rearing one lamb. We want every pure ewe to have a lamb and rear it.
With around 200 sets of triplets last year, a third lamb is lifted and if it is not adopted by another ewe, goes onto an automatic milk machine.
“Pet lambs are not the answer, but they are extra heads at the end of the day. If we can break even, we are doing all we can,” he added.
Commercials are split into three batches – Texel Mules, Scotch Mules and Suffolk crosses – with 200 to 300 in each batch which are run with around 20 to 25 home-bred ram lambs to ensure all are covered.
Breeding sheep are fed an 18% blend and move onto Super Ewe rolls six weeks prior to lambing which is fed right through until a month post-lambing.
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“We are fairly well stocked here and tend not to have a lot of grass, so post-lambing feeding is absolutely essential to keep the milk on the ewes and for them to make a decent job of their lambs,” said Willie.
Some 400 ewe lambs are retained for replacements each year which are selected on conformation and weight at weaning time.
“We want to keep breeding sheep that can produce an optimum weight lamb quickly,” added Willie.
With the focus on getting lambs away as soon as possible, creep feeders are put out for the commercial lambs but the pures don’t have access to any until after weaning.
“We find creep feeding is a good way to get young lambs growing and we need them all away off-farm as soon as possible,” said Willie, who admits it costs just shy of £20 per head to creep lambs but it does pay.
Any lambs left by the end of September are housed and finished by November.
The aim is to produce a finished lamb for Morrisons at Woodheads, at the 21kg deadweight with an E or U grade.
This year, the team has already sold 470 lambs which have averaged 21.09kg deadweight, with 43% being Es and Us and 99% being 3Ls.
“Having just done a carbon footprint audit, finishing lambs as quickly as possible on creep feed has reduced the number of days on farm and reduced our carbon footprint, and it’s the same for the cattle,” said Willie. Cattle numbers have been reduced in recent years due to the wet summers which resulted in a lot of poaching and cows having to be housed earlier than they should be. They are already inside for the winter and on a silage-based diet, with their calves sold at the end of February as stores and to get the sheds cleared out for the start of lambing.
In previous years, most of the cows were bulled to a home-bred Blonde, but this year Finlay purchased two Limousin bulls as part of a change in policy.
Falla is also home to two holiday cottages – Falla Farm Holidays – which have been up and running for almost six years now having previously housed long-term tenants.
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The farm at Falla has always been very much family oriented and with the next generation showing a strong interest and focusing on stock, it looks like it will continue to be for a long time to come yet.
“Numbers are where we want them. We are at full stock capacity and have a high-cost system so there is scope to reduce costs through better farm management. We want to continue doing what we are doing – aiming to produce the best tups we can for the commercial market,” concluded Willie.
Farm Facts
Involvement: Willie and Wendy Scott run the business alongside son, Finlay and daughter Millie. Millie has just graduated with a degree in Animal Science and is currently working at the Moredun Research Institute on sheep disease control before heading to Australia and New Zealand in October.
History: Falla Farm was taken over in 1984 having been in the family since the 1800s.
Livestock: Running a mixed beef and sheep enterprise consisting of a 50 suckler cow herd along with 1150 ewes, of which 300 are pure Texels and Suffolks with the remaining 850 run commercially.
Acreage: 223.5Ha (200 permanent pasture, rest forestry etc) which sits at between 700-900ft above sea level.
On the spot questions
Best investment: Marrying Wendy, as well as producing two children who are hardworking, successful and prepared for whatever life has to throw at them!
Best advice: Be open – everyone has bad days and make mistakes. It’s much easier to admit to them and move on, tomorrow is a new day.
If you could change one thing in farming, what would it be? There are some terrific young people desperate to farm who can’t get a foot on the ladder. There must be something that could be done to alter this situation, the older generation are getting older and the young ones are the future.
Best tool on the farm: The Racewell HD4 sheep handler. Have always wanted one we bit the bullet when the grant scheme was available. It makes fat lamb weighing/drawing simple and takes the back ache out of crutching amongst many other things such as gathering performance information on pure sheep making breeding and culling decisions easier.
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