Filston Autumn

Joining our Badger Faced Welsh Mountain and Zwartbles sheep are this small flock of Herdwicks

Rosie fancied them as a breed and travelled to the Dolphin Sheep Fair at Ardingly during Lockdown 1 to make a purchase, and following some socially distanced bidding they made their way to us and are now acclimatising in the garden

Our sheep have fared reasonably well this year, despite poor grass growth in the spring. Prices have been good but the future looks much less certain

A large proportion of UK lamb is exported particularly to Europe and potential tariffs could reduce returns by a third

Our annual shearing is simply a welfare issue with the cost of transporting the wool to Ashford being greater than the return from its sale

Fortunately our sheep number in the hundreds rather than the thousands so any losses should be bearable

Their main place on the farm is to maintain floral diversity on our Stewardship land, particularly on the chalk banks

They spend their lives outdoors and are entirely grass fed. Their only visit to the shed is at lambing time

We have attempted to lamb outdoors in the past but the losses of newborns to predators such as foxes and badgers was so great that we had to revert to indoor lambing