Stories from the farm November 26

Holly leading the flerd.

Newsletter this month by Holly:

I am not one for celebrating " 6-month anniversaries,” but I reckon 6 months of the Wark Farm Flerd deserves one. A semi-flerdiversary! And what a 6 months it has been. In case you are new to our newsletters, in May we joined our flock of hebridean sheep and our herd of belted galloway cattle into one big group that we like to call the ‘flerd’. There have been highs and lows and many MANY lessons learned. It has been one of the steepest learning curves I have been on for a while. Everything I learned about grassland management at agriculture college has been flipped on its head, and I have had to retrain my brain to switch onto our new AMP (Adaptive Multi-Paddock) grazing set-up.

Our grazing plan with the flerd for the last 6 months has been, well there is no set plan. Our new mantra around the farm is “be adaptive”. At the start of the grazing season, we split all the fields on the farm into paddocks. Throughout the year, we have increased, decreased or completely changed the layout in the field. Has it been a lot of work? Absolutely. Has it been worth it? 110%! We are no longer managing grass. The best way to describe what we are doing is we are essentially pruning the grass using the flerd as our secateurs. Sometimes the grass needs a little more taken off, sometimes a little less, or sometimes we skip a paddock altogether to allow for a longer recovery before being grazed again.

Shifting the flerd successfully is what I would consider a legal high.The feeling of leading a flerd of 80 belties and around 270 sheep across fields is immensely satisfying and such a hit of dopamine. Most moves, it is usually the cows that first come to me and follow. Then, like a vacuum, the sheep funnel and follow along behind. There have been a few occasions where the sheep are the first to follow me.

All of this flerding has built on the mutual trust I have with the animals. The flerd know that when I call, sometimes they respond to the mere sight of me and I do not have to say a word, I will lead them to fresh grazing. In the same respect I have also learned to trust in them. When the flerd pauses for a few mouthfuls of grass in a field they believe is our final destination, I know that when I call for their attention again, they will follow me onto the next field. Of course it has not been smooth flerding all the time. We went through a phase where the sheep were escaping. Daily. Luckily through some reinforcement of the fencing and separating the trouble-makers from the main group, we managed to see an end to the escapee sheep.

It has gotten to a point where I cannot remember what the sheep or cows look like without the other. When we brought some of the sheep at the end of October and left the cows in the field it just looked… wrong. The field looked a bit naked without the sheep filling in the spaces around the cows.

As we come into the winter, I look back on all we have achieved on the farm in regards to progress with the animals. We had a very wet and gloomy start to the year that really knocked our sheep flock back. It knocked us all back down, if I am honest, feeling like we had failed the sheep. Now when I look at the sheep, i feel like I am looking at a totally different group. We have also extended the grazing season by a month. This time last year we had started feeding our winter silage bales to the animals, but we still have at least a month's worth of grass.

I have said before in a previous newsletter how feeding the cows in the morning in the tractor is a bit of calm for me in the day, almost like a type of therapy. I’ve changed my mind. Shifting the flerd is my new favourite therapy and long may it continue.

UPDATED ORDER FORM  ONLINE NOW

The November order form is now updated and online. WE ARE ALSO TAKING DECEMBER FESTIVE DAY PRE-ORDERS NOW

You can find the link below to the order form with all our different meat cuts available, along with practical info about delivery/collection dates.