Young blood on the show circuit

It’s a form of conditioning that may not always translate as easily when dealing with human issues but there’s little doubting that 15-year-old Laura Beaton possesses an old head on young shoulders when talking stock.

Laura, who is the first of a number of younger farming folk who we are profiling in Country Week as we look to the industry’s future, is making a name for herself around the sheep pens on the agricultural show circuit with her Wensleydales.

Earlier this year she had her first breed champion, which also went on to take the reserve interbreed title at North Yorkshire County Show.

She has won clutches of rosettes at the Great Yorkshire Show and Ryedale in recent weeks and is hoping that she can get to Wensleydale Show on Saturday, August 26, but you can forget any idea you may have that she’s simply in it to win it.

Laura’s parents, Stuart and Lily, own and run the highly successful Ainsty Farm Shop on the A59 near Green Hammerton and a little of their farmer-cum-butcher’s mentality has already been ingrained.

“We’re exceptionally proud of Laura and our other two children Chloe (16) and Henry (13),” says Stuart.

“They all contribute and have great talents. Laura wanted some Wensleydales and nattered away at me until she got her first couple in 2012 and one of the reasons why I’m so taken with what she’s doing is that my parents were involved with pedigree livestock for many generations and Lily’s parents were livestock farmers too, so this is like returning to our families’ roots.

“Laura has been well aware since she got her first sheep that if they’re not up to it they’ll be on display in the meat counter and she’s driven that side herself by making sure of the quality of her stock, learning from others.

“We’re not in any way making her cull them unnecessarily and she’s certainly not some kind of sloppy, sentimental kid when it comes to sheep.”

Five years ago Laura based her choice of breed on what many would regard as something woolly and attractive, today her business head has taken control and she’s already thinking years ahead.

“I saw a poster and asked dad if I could have a couple of ewes. He got some from Mark Elliott of Ferensby. I had them in lamb the following year and one of the two has bred nearly all the good ones I’ve shown. I also bred off her first lamb and now I’ve had two crops off her. I now have 15 Wensleydales. I’ve lambed them through March each year until now but this year I’m going to sponge all the ewes so that they will all hopefully lamb around the same time.

“I borrowed tups off Mark for the first couple of years but I’ve bought my own in the past three years. I went down to Rugby to buy Princethorpe Knockout and the shearlings I’ve shown this year are by him. Last year I bought a tup lamb from Nick Oliver in Skipton and this year I bought a tup from Ernie Sherwin.

“The breed champion and interbreed reserve champion at North Yorkshire County was by Princethorpe Knockout. It was really exciting as I’d never had a breed champion before and I had some great placings at Harrogate and Ryedale.

“Last year I also put one of my ewes to a Charollais X Beltex tup and had a good crossbred lamb from her that we killed out at 12 weeks. It weighed 28 kilos deadweight and it tasted good too as we had some for tea and Rosemary Shrager and dad did a cookery demonstration using a rack of lamb off it.

“A lot of people like Wensleydales for their wool but I think they offer a lot more.”

Stuart feels that Laura may have uncovered a new role for the Wensleydale.

“Ernie (Sherwin) seems to feel the same as Laura and I that a lot of breeders have seen Wensleydales as being all about the wool, but it looks like there could be an opportunity for the Wensleydale ewe to be a commercial dam.

“They milk like Ayrshire cows and when Laura lambs her ewes it’s quite easy to get an extra bottle of colostrum from each one to pop in the freezer for anything else that comes along.

“It means the ewes can quite successfully rear three lambs without any effort at all so we’re now looking at perhaps increasing the commercial flock we currently have on our holding with Wensleydales and Wensleydale X rather than taking on more Suffolks.

“Whenever we’ve had Wensleydale lamb in the shop it has always gone well.”

The wool attributes of the breed haven’t been pushed to one side either and Stuart tells of Laura having recently found a buyer who will pay a highly competitive price.

“A chap from Lancashire has just bid her a very good price for hogg fleeces. He’s supplying knitters and spinners.

“It’s all bagged up and ready to go. That’s one of the advantages of the breed and means that you can almost equal the value of an individual animal as commercial sheep with its first clip.

“If you can do more of that you’ve in effect brought a sheep into your breeding flock that already owes you nothing.”

Laura is already clear about where her future lies.

“I’d like to be a farmer as well as maybe do some other work in agriculture. I had work experience at York Auction Centre this year where I enjoyed being in the market office and handling such as cattle passports.

“I’ve lambed for local farmers John and Sue Barnes for the past couple of years and I’d like to study at Harper Adams.

“I like cattle as well but prefer sheep farming. I would always keep Wensleydales but may try Teeswaters as well and also something more commercial like Texel, Texel X and Beltex. You need to think about the meat.”