The Yorkshire farm supplying Waitrose and Marks & Spencer with venison from its red deer

Andrew said he’d had an interest in red deer as a different from of income from livestock since his young farmers club days and his daughter Alice’s keenness to farm alongside him brought about the opportunity to look at it in greater detail.

“We’d had someone come to give our club a talk on red deer and it had stuck with me so much that I’d always prick up my ears when red deer were mentioned. I suggested to Alice that her dissertation looking at making red deer work on a farm might be useful as we had an 80-acre block where they could go.

“When we started with the deer we visited several other farmers who had experience of them, but the chap who mentored us most of all was Simon Pike who works for Roger Clutterbuck at Hornby Castle.

“We bought quite a few deer from him and that brought us into a group called First Venison that now supplies Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.”

Andrew and Alice’s herd now runs to around 70 breeding hinds made up of Eastern European and British red deer that sees them calving from late May and through June.

Andrew said the deer are generally easy to keep. “They pretty much look after themselves and we have never had to buy any hinds in since we started, just stags that we pick up privately.

“Once calved the young stay out with their mums until the beginning of November when we take them off and put them inside until April. After that they go out for a second summer. They eat the grass while outside and silage inside. We start selling them the following autumn at around 16-17 months.”

Alice, now Alice Dawson, said that her father has always been in her corner in backing her to succeed in farming.

“I was very lucky. Dad has always encouraged me to work hard and has never made me feel like any job was either too big or too small. I’ve worked for other farms and I’ve also worked as a contract shepherdess and contract shearer, but my dissertation proved one of the ways in which I could work with dad here at home.

“My dissertation was based on how to make a farm work on 100 acres. That was when I asked dad what I should do and it’s how the red deer came about.

“I now work alongside dad as well as being a mum. I have two children with my husband John – Peggy, who is three years old and Walter who just turned one last week.

“British farmed venison is beautiful meat and its health benefits of being high in iron and low in fat make it so underestimated for its quality and nutrition.”

The sheep enterprise at Dundale Beck sees Andrew and Alice with a flock of 850 breeding ewes made up of Swaledales and Mules.

Andrew said their move from putting on the Texel tup to a New Zealand Texel tup has proved successful in several ways including needing less tups due to their potency and longevity.

“We have pure Swaledales and buy Swaledale tups at St John’s Chapel as we find they are a bit better for us; and we put the Bluefaced Leicester tups that we buy privately from Tim Dunn at Breck House Enterprises in Bransdale to 200 of our Swaledale ewes to produce our Mules.

“We produce around 95-100 replacement Swaledales and Mules each year. We came up with putting the New Zealand Texel tup to the Mules after I’d seen our neighbouring farmer Paul Proudley try them.

“We bought some of his tups and found they did a good job for us.”

Andrew said they fit in with the sheep farming system at Dundale Beck. “We lamb everything outside and don’t start until April 20. What we find is that we can get a lot of the Mule-cross-New Zealand Texel lambs to a cracking weight purely off grass.”

Alice said New Zealand Texel tups and their crossbred lambs aren’t the prettiest sheep to look at. “They’re not that bonny compared to a whitefaced Texel but they have more than proved their worth.”

Alice said the future livestock plan is fairly straightforward and gave special praise to their sheepdogs. “We will probably stick with the same numbers we have. We run three collies and we would be completely lost without them. Going forward with the red deer we would like to increase our numbers.”

The farm also includes 150 acres of arable land that is currently on a three-crop rotation of winter wheat, winter barley and oilseed rape that is share farmed with Andrew’s first cousin Alan Petch.

Andrew said he’s considering doing away with the oilseed rape crop and incorporating a haylage crop, as well as growing bird cover.

“A two-year break of grass leys would help the equine side that Alice’s husband John is developing in Great Ayton and will also help bring about greater soil fertility. Soil management is key at the moment.”

John Dawson is well known in the Point to Point world and this year took his sixth Yorkshire Men’s Champion title.

Alice said their daughter Peggy is already ensconced in the farming world. “Peggy is old before her time. She could tell the difference between a Swale and a Mule before she was two years old.

“She and Walter come to work with me every day.”