A farm in Worcestershire has been recognised as having the most progressive flock of Lleyn sheep based on the flock's genetic merit and improvement over the past 10 years.
Bank Farm Lleyn, owned by Marcus and Kathryn Bullock from Abberley in Worcestershire, has been recognised by AHDB Beef & Lamb.
Marcus’ interest in the Lleyn breed started when he studied the breeds that were used to bring the Lleyn out of rare breed status for his degree thesis at Harper Adams.
He gradually changed his flock from crossbreds to purebred Lleyn between 1988 and 1991 and now runs 600 breeding females.
Marcus has always recorded his sheep but in 2005 joined Signet. “Before 2004 I felt the focus of the breed was on prolificacy which didn’t fit with the sheep I wanted to produce,” he said.
“However when the breed carcase traits and index were more in line with the sheep I wanted I decided to record with Signet, and have been doing so ever since.”
It is rare that stock are bought in as Marcus wants to evolve the genetics of the flock from bloodlines on farm.
“I haven’t bought any females since the foundation ewes in 1988 and in the last six years I have only bought three rams. When selecting for breeding I look for twin-born, a very good mouth and feet, good conformation and not too big,” he added.
“The flock has been involved in work to enable the selection of animals for parasite resistance and so I also select for worm resistance FEC EBV.”
Strict policy
Marcus has a a strict breeding policy to make sure the breed continues to move forward, and so anything that doesn’t make the grade is removed from the flock.
When making breeding decisions, he explained how he has the customer in mind so he produces animals they want to buy.
“Unlike many UK flocks who are looking for the reason to retain a sheep, we are constantly looking for any reason to either cull them, or demote them to our later-lambing commercial flock,” he explained.
In the early years, he sold stock through society sales but the second foot and mouth outbreak in 2007 made him re-evaluate what he was doing.
“The outbreak meant sales were postponed and I began to think closely about where I wanted the flock to be,” explained Marcus.
“I decided to sell everything from home and in 2016 started the first production sale on farm. It started with rams but in 2017 I began selling females this way too. I’m finding more people want to buy off farm, all the sheep are performance recorded and the flock has a high health status, including MV & EAE accredited, CLA tested and it is also scrapie genotyped.”
“We tend to sell older ewes and keep our flock at home young. There’s a good demand for an older ewe and at our farm sales they go for the best price. They come with the benefit of good genetics as well as known performance that back up the figures.”
