Lambing is always memorable, but it is a particularly exciting time for Aberdeenshire Suffolk breeder John Gibb when he and his family look forward to seeing the next generation from their highly prized Cairnton flock.
It’s especially rewarding for John, his wife Leah, and their three daughters, Elisa, Sophia and Charlotte, as not only have they built up a top breeding flock from scratch, but also completely on their own having moved away from the family farm 10 years ago.
Such has been their success that they’ve sold ram lambs to 75,000gns in 2022 and 30,000gns in 2021, while ewe lambs reached 12,000gns at the Dark Diamonds sale at Carlisle in December.
More impressive is the fact that the only ground owned is a seven-acre site on which the Gibbs built a family home and two 80ft x 40ft sheds.
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“I couldn’t have done it without the support and encouragement of Leah and the girls,” said John adding that Leah is head teacher of Strichen Primary School while eldest daughter Elisa is studying to be a teacher at Aberdeen University and youngest Charlotte is still at secondary school.
The second daughter Sophia helps out a lot with the sheep and is currently in S6 doing her advanced highers and plans to study and have a career in the agricultural industry.
In 2013, John had to sell off his Cairnton ewes at a November in-lamb breed sale at Stirling. He retained the ewe lambs on the seven-acre site gifted to them by Leah’s parents and immediately set about working for the neighbouring Chapman family, West Cockmuir, building a family home and his Suffolk flock.
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A shed was constructed during the summer of 2014 to lamb his ewes inside in December/January. A year later, the builders started construction of a beautiful family home, with the second shed built in 2023.
Now, 10 years later, the Suffolk flock comprises 30 breeding ewes built up from the remaining ewe lambs and based on Cairness genetics from John’s uncle Jimmy Douglas’ nearby flock. The original foundation females, 22 ewes bought in 1999 from Graeme Smith, Tyrie, were also based on Cairness bloodlines.
John added: “I’ve always liked good quality Suffolk sheep with size, conformation and silky hair. You need the silky hair to produce the milk and I like them to be correct on their legs, with good bone.
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“I like Suffolks with plenty of breed character too and good flappy lugs. You can’t sell breeding sheep at a premium unless you have females with breed character.”
Such pedigrees proved a huge hit for a young John in 2006 when he received 8000gns for a ram lamb at the breed society sale at Ingliston. A year later, John also bred the pre-sale champion that went on to make 12,000gns selling to the Perrinpit flock.
Over the years the Cairnton flock has achieved many top prices, including 16,000gns at Stirling in 2016 and 9000gns just last year at the National Sale in Shrewsbury.
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One of John’s best rams sold however has been Cairnton The Cracker, which made 10,000gns to Charlie and Kevin Proctor, who dispersed their Conveth flock in 2012 with most of their ewes served to him. The tup proved hugely successful for flock buyers and Seamus Brown who bought The Cracker at the dispersal and bred well for him.
In more recent years, it has been a ewe – known better as 1641 or tag number 00281 – by Baileys Rock Solid, a son of the 70,000gns Rhaeadr Rossi that has made her mark on the flock, having bred the 75,000gns Cairnton Chaos at Lanark in 2022. Her daughters are also proving to be star breeders with ewe lambs to 12,000gns at Carlisle, while another produced the top price at Lanark in November which went on to make 1900gns.
The 1641 ewe was also the grand dam of the 30,000gns Cairness Strike.
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Add in some top breeding sires to include Bridgeview Balvenie – the sire of Cairnton Chaos; Cairness Five Star a son of the Balvenie tup; a share of Jimmy Douglas’ £25,000 lamb sold at Kelso last year and Jalex Powerhouse bought jointly with Cairness at the online sale in 2022, and lambing, which is mostly finished for this year, has been especially exciting.
With John employed full-time by the Chapmans at West Cockmuir and now farm manager of their 2500-acre beef and arable unit, most of the busy sheep work is centred around holiday time.
Ewes are AI’d by Penrith-based Dan Fawcett, to lamb from Christmas Day onwards, when the girls are available to help. The best four or five ewes are flushed to produce an average of eight to 10 embryos, but only after they’ve had at least one crop of lambs to see how they breed.
The business is fortunate to have its own 30+ recipient females too, which are based on home-bred Suffolk cross Texel cross Mule cross females, with any that fail to hold tupped naturally with a Suffolk. This year, only four from the recipients and AI’d females, came back and are due at the end of the month.
With a restricted acreage and demand for big strong lambs, quality as opposed to quantity is key at Cairnton, so embryos are put in as singles, with the flock’s usual 150% lamb crop proving ideal.
Breeding and working with such valuable stock, John is extremely particular about what feeding is used and he therefore relies on a home mix based on oats, soya, molasses and maize, fed according to the number of lambs being carried.
“There is nothing to beat Soya for putting milk on ewes and producing good strong lambs that are better able to fight infection,” he said adding that turnips are also provided after lambing, and a young lamb Harbro creep feed with decox is introduced at the end of January.”
Out with the family’s seven-acre base, a further 30 acres are rented for winter and summer grazing with the ewes kept outside until a week before lambing when they then come into straw-bedded sheds. A month prior to lambing, they are introduced to Harbro Energyze Vitality buckets and once inside they have access to good quality haylage.
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New-born lambs have their navels dipped in iodine and are then transferred into an individual straw-bedded pen with their mother for a couple of days to make sure they bond before moving into a group pen with other ewes and lambs.
A lime-based powder and fresh straw are used to disinfect the pens in between ewes.
Lambing has proved a lot easier in recent years too with next generation stock having much more vigour, thereby reducing the amount of work involved. There are far fewer caesareans compared to previous years too with the vet only called for a single lamb coming backwards.
Ideally, ewes and lambs would be out on grass during the day in January but such has been the weather this year, that it is likely to be the end of February before they get outside full time.
“Grass makes such a difference to the quantity and quality of milk produced and the sheep just love to get outside.”
John also splits the ewe lambs and their mothers up from ram lambs and their dams to enable the former to grow more naturally, while the males can be pushed that wee bit more for the sales when 20 are sold every year between Lanark, Shrewsbury, Carlisle and Thainstone.
With the best females retained, up to 18 ewe lambs and gimmers are sold per year which last year were cashed at Skipton, Lanark, Carlisle and Thainstone with huge success.
“There will always be a place for the Suffolk because of its size, carcase, conformation and ease of fleshing off grass. People try other breeds but they always come back to the Suffolk purely for those reasons. You can put a Suffolk over any female and you’ll get that extra hybrid vigour and ewes that don’t take mastitis the same as some of the white breeds,” concluded John.
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