Nothing Sheepish About A 12 Year British Farm Boy With Big Ideas
Posted by Unknown in Layer Poultry, Sheep Farming, Success Stories, United Kingdom (UK) on Sunday 27 January 2013
By Chris Benfield
(Yorkshire Post) He’s still just a slip of a lad but schoolboy farmer William Watson is already thinking big in business.
Farmers
at a pedigree sheep event last week were surprised to find themselves
outbid for the prize-winners of the day by the 12-year-old.
And
it was no stunt. William was spending his own money, saved from the egg
business he has been running since he was 10, with 130 genuinely
free-range layers producing about 100 eggs a day.
He
goes out at 7am daily to let them out of their shed, locks them up
before going to bed at night and mucks out every weekend. And he and his
mother, Julie, deliver the eggs locally at £2.50 a dozen.
He
is now moving into sheep breeding and he took his cheque book to the
Northern Texel Sheep Show and Sale of pedigree females at Skipton on
Saturday, December 3.
The
judge. David Burkill, who runs the Beechtree Texel flock at Driffield,
awarded first prize to a shearling ewe from the Beautry flock of Stuart
Currie at Rathmell, near Settle, and second prize to another young ewe
from Angela Nairey’s Meinspride flock, based at Liusey, near Blackburn.
And
William agreed on the judgment. Bidding in the old English currency,
which is still traditional at pedigree sales, he paid 1,440 guineas
(£1,512) for the first animal and 1,150gns (£1,207) for the other – the
top prices of the day.
He also bought two cheaper ewes, at 550gns and 280gns, taking his total spend on the day to nearly £3,500.
For
the benefit of younger generations who do not bid at livestock markets,
a guinea means 21 old shillings, or 105p. The name refers back to the
first machine-minted English coin, which was made of gold from the
Guinea region of West Africa.
William took his new stock home to Hellifield, near Skipton, where his father, Paul, deals in stone.
Mr
Watson is also a buyer for Dunbia, a big meat processor, and well known
around the auction markets. And he runs a few commercial cross-breed
cattle and sheep on their home smallholding.
But
the Texel flock is William’s own project and he did his own research on
what was interesting in the sale catalogue and what he might expect to
pay.
He consulted neighbours John and Linda Mellin at Hull House, Hellifield, who already have a name in Texel circles.
It
was seeing and admiring their flock that set him off on his new venture
and he bought six from them a few weeks before heading for the Skipton
sale – making his total investment so far about £6,000.
William
does not yet have a ram but the two prize animals he bought at Skipton
are already in lamb to top-quality sires and one is carrying twins. All
the others he has bought in lamb and should start delivering in
February.
From
routine scanning, he knows in most cases whether he is expecting twins
or singles. But he does not know of which sex. A bid for a pregnant
sheep is basically a bet.
But sometimes that bet can pay off in fine style.
“I think it spurred him on,” said his father yesterday, “when our neighbour sold a tup lamb at Carlisle for 36,000 guineas.”
William is a pupil at Settle Middle School, where he has friends like him who are already planning a career in farming.
“That’s what I want,” he said.
“I did used to say I wanted to be a racing driver but that was when I was very young.
“I help my dad out with his sheep and I just like the look of Texels. They are just nice big strong-looking animals.”
Most
of his new flock are about twice his size, in fact, but he is learning
to hold them, with an eye on exhibiting at Gargrave Show next summer.
Texels are a burly breed, originally from the Continent, which have won themselves an important role in the UK meat industry.
In the mood for festive Moo-sic
It
may sound udderly ridiculous, but a government quango set up to promote
dairy farming has released a collection of Christmas songs put together
from North Yorkshire cows’ moos.
DairyCo,
an organisation funded by a levy on farmgate milk prices, got the cow
noises from Easby Grange, Stokesley, near Middlesbrough, where farmer
John Chapman recorded them on his smartphone.
Then
DairyCo got the digitalised sounds chopped up and re-assembled into
tunes including Silent Night, Jingle Bells and other compositions which
might appeal for ringtones, message alerts and alarms.
This entry was posted on Sunday 27 January 2013 at 10:46 and is filed under Layer Poultry, Sheep Farming, Success Stories, United Kingdom (UK). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.
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