The Good Shepherd ...

It’s been a while but I better finish what I started.  

Before I left for Norfolk I had actually given Tim a rest from my dull chat in order to go and see David Sullivan.  David has been - for a few years now - this mythological figure in my brain.  John Vipond, SAC’s sheep specialist, credited him for a lot for ideas and even in my mock Nuffield interview it was suggested that I should go and see the guy.

David lives in Hampshire surrounded by pretty thatched cottages.  He owns his house but has never owned any other piece of land.  His view is that no one really “owns” land they just own a piece of paper that says they own it. He has never wanted to own land ... just farm it.

He 70 years old and has a tangible gentleness to him.  It is the first visit in 15 months of my Nuffield Scholarship where we say grace before we eat. He and his wife were childhood sweet hearts and there was never going to be anyone else for either of them.

David and Eileen Sullivan

With the exception of “Hello”, the first words David said to me were “There are no problems, only solutions”.  This appears to be the definition of how he has lived his farming life. 

Brought up in the town, his father arranged for a local farmer to give him horrible jobs as a child with the instructions “knock it out of him”.  This was in reference to David’s obsession with farming.  It didn’t work.

He was a shepherd and manger until he was 38 and had a further 6 years managing the farm of a philanthropic gentleman.  In these six years, working in unison, they moved toward a share farming system.  The agreement was he could build up 25% of the flock in his ownership. The owner would have allowed him more but this level was what David deemed fair. Integrity is everything for David Sullivan.

The next step was to expand.  He asked his local landlord if he could rent some land.  The landlord said no.  Importantly David asked him “why not?”.  The issue was security of tenure.  David went away to find a solution to his limiting factor.  If the landlord owned half the stock then security of tenure was not an issue.  Over the next few years, David developed the share farming concept on his own, without realizing there were similar agreements elsewhere in the world. He created a local sub culture, with his original landlord’s neighbours joining in. He had land and stock coming out his ears.  He had approaches from the City, as he was achieving 25% return on capital for his investors.  

Without doubt he created his own opportunities.  In doing so he placed significant importance on his natural way with people.  He is a character, he does things differently and has a great sense of humour.  He saw it as vital, whilst marketing yourself to gain opportunity, to “have a bit of style”, to do things differently with humour and to tell a story.

David was the first to develop share farming in the UK, the first to May lamb and the first to drift lamb.  He was an innovator as well as a character.  He had really testing times but saved himself by his history of integrity and his determination to find solutions. 

Back to Life, Back to Reality .....

Warning: The following post contains constant and detailed reference to sheep and should not be read by those with a low tolerance to sheep chat ....

Three days back and its all been a bit bonkers here. The reality is that I owe people money, which I didn’t when I left for my trip. Six weeks of not doing consultancy and cash flow has stopped - one of the rules of first generation farming club I learnt whilst away was that Cash is King..... Bugger - I’m breaking the rules already.

In a vain attempt to stop the men with baseball bats coming to make enquiries, I sent 40 lambs too market on Thursday. The results made me think:

To make a fair comparison, lets use the price per kg figure and then make both the first two groups 40 kg lambs instead. Per head, the Wiltshire crosses would have been £63.60; the Texel crosses would have been £68.40 - that’s almost £5 of a difference. On this basis, taking an example of a total of 650 lambs sold, that would be £3,120 more income if they were all texel lambs. To make this difference up I’d need 699 Wilt cross lambs to produce the same income as just 650 texel crosses.

On the evidence of the above, I probably should be happy to drop the Wiltshire and just use Texel rams ..... but I can’t. See, once upon a time, I had this plan to breed my own peculiar composite ewe. It would shed its wool (that’s why I needed the Wiltshire), be prolific, a great mum and have good conformation. One day I would have thousands of these perfect sheep. I believe in fairy tales - I’m a dreamer and a romantic - but it’s the hope this plan might actually work in reality that makes me happy.

The lambs in the first group were either 62.5% or 56.25% Wilt (its less complex than it sounds, honest!) but only 12.5% or 7.25% Texel (Ok not doing myself any favours re the complexity argument, am I?). The end aim for the composite sheep is for them to be Wilt 50%, Texel 25% and Lleyn 25% with most of them producing Texel sired lambs. I’ll get good prices with patience. I just need to endure some pain before I experience the pleasure. It will all end happily ever after - honest!

Sheep ..... probably the best animal in the world...

A huge proportion of my followers (50% of all two of them) have requested more detail on the sheep that I’ve come across here. Always keen to respond quickly to feedback, I have waited a week and finally got round to this - this ones for you Timothy....

Damarra and Dorper - wool shedders. The Damarra is a fat tailed sheep that isn’t too popular with processors as a pure bred. It is smaller than the dorper, hardy and has the ability for polyoestrus (Sp?) lambing (ie twice a year) I hope I’ve attached a photo of some cross Damarras; the Dorper - I saw mostly white faced - is a big sheep with a good carcass. A cross of the two is common with Garry Hannigan really pleased with a Dorper (50%); Damarra (25%) and Wiltshire Horn (25%) cross. Amazingly for all you Wilt breeders out there (Ok lets be honest that just means Tim...) the Wiltshire was added to increase prolificacy!!!! He was also using Meatmasters which from a hazy memory were cross Dorper/Damarras.

Though the Merino still rules in the pastoral country of the Outback there is a big shift toward the wool shedders. A Merino can add $15-20 of wool and $7-14 for its skin but its labour demands, huge risk of flies and poorer meat product make shedders a more attractive option in rangeland Australia due to the logistics and costs of mustering. This step change in production was symbolised by the Browns at Reola station home to one of the biggest and efficient wool sheds in Australia. It has the capability to allow shearing of 2,800 ewes a day. The Browns have since gone 90% toward wool shedders and the wool shed lies quiet for most of the year.

The Australian sheep flock has reduced from 180 million ewes to under 80 million and as a result their lamb price is probably better than ours ($120 for decent 50kg lambs). But down in South Australia pure Merino and first cross Merino ewes (with Border Leicester, White Suffolk or Poll Dorset) are almost the only way to go. Easier managed country and the financial importance of wool and Merino type skins make it the logical choice.

Graham Clothier at Lucindale taught me alot in terms of focusing on the essentials and keeping systems simple. Feed according to need, ensure good shelter to limit post lambing mortality and get as many lambs out of them as possible. This seems obvious but Graham was doing things beyond what I had actually considered. He also took me to Naracoorte market which was a bit different to UA Stirling! (see left)

I did go and see the the Breed president of the Wiltipolls near Strathalbyn. Wiltipolls are Wiltshire Horns crossed with a polled breed followed by four back crosses, with only the hornless selected (see below left). If you thought it was impossible to improve on a Wiltshire Horn, this is it and the yellow van will be coming to get you very soon using the Mental Health Act as an enforcement tool.

On my last visit in South Australia, I met an interesting man (Lynton Arney) who bred Border Leicesters - like our Border Leicesters but they looked far less like rabbits exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation. His branding was really impressive (sweatshirts, caps and even cooking aprons) and his method of client care - genuine but not intrusive; factual rather than hype - seemed really effective.

I am sorry for my poor photo placement and quality but I cannot accept liability for any dissatisfaction on anyones part especially those that play the banjo and are from Wiltshire.