NSA provides ‘next piece of the puzzle’ for young sheep farmer in Kent

With big business ambitions and an expanding flock, young sheep farmer Harry Frederick will be putting the top prize in an NSA prize draw to good use on his family farm in Tonbridge, Kent.

Harry is the fifth NSA member this year to win a Shearwell EID stick reader package, with seven more kits still to be given away before the end of the year as part of NSA’s membership recruitment efforts. New members, as well as existing member who refer someone to sign up, get entered in the draw, with one lucky winner drawn out every month.

For Harry, the timing could not have been better. He explains: “I was actually out weighing my lambs when I received the phone call telling me I’d won. I was writing down their weights and corresponding number, which I had written on the back of their EID tags in permanent marker. I am looking forward to continuing this process in a much more efficient way now! Last year I bought a mobile handling system and weigh-crate through the Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme – and the next piece of the puzzle was getting an EID stick reader.

“Using a stick reader will enable me to monitor performance so much more easily. I will be able to identify patterns within the flock and analyse which breeds are performing and which ones aren’t. I will be able to back up my general feeling that some of my sheep are more profitable than others with hard facts, and issues such as lameness will be simpler to record and a strict culling programme can be followed. With so many good reviews for Shearwell’s stick reader I was particularly pleased to win one of theirs, and look forward to trying it out.”

Winning the stick reader is the second positive NSA activity for happen to Harry this year, as in January he was also selected to take part in the NSA Next Generation Ambassador programme. He is one of 12 young sheep farmers attending personal development and business training days through the year, helping him progress as a sheep farmer and businessman.

Harry says: “So far this year I have already seen the wealth of experience and excitement that different members of NSA have and how much they genuinely want us to succeed. NSA is a fantastic organisation that is on the forefront of the sheep sector and leading the way in innovation and communication. It is an extremely useful resource for connecting sheep farmers in the UK and organisations such as NSA convince me that the future of British sheep farming is bright.”

Harry’s involvement in the industry is relatively new, as despite lived on a farm all his life, it was not until he spent a year working on a livestock unit in the Scottish Borders that he developed a particular interest in sheep. Now aged 27, he runs 240 of his own ewes alongside the family’s South Devon beef herd and arable enterprises, and has future expansion plans.

He says: “I have several Romney ewes but the bulk of the flock are North Country Mules and Suffolk Mules, the latter being bred on the farm with my Suffolk rams and subsequently put on a Charollais ram to produce a good finishing lamb. These breeds have worked well for me so far to produce high quality lamb for my local butcher, alongside selling beef and lamb ourselves at the farmers’ market in our village of Penshurst, but I am keen to collect as much data as possible from my sheep in the next few years to make more informed decisions about the direction of my flock.”