LANDMARK FOR BULLS BUSHES TEXELS
By David Monroe
The Bulls Bushes Pedigree Texel Flock celebrates
its 30th anniversary this December. Having previously
been run at Bulls Bushes Farm in Hampshire by Renwell
Pasmore, the core of the flock now resides in Somerset
with Mr Pasmore’s son.
 Gary Pasmore moved to the low-lying 243-acre Haslemere
Farm near Ilchester back in 1999, bringing all his
pedigree Texels and some of the crossbreds. Excited
at the prospect of starting a new farm on his own,
he was still cautious not to change too much too
quickly.
“My father first got into Texels in 1975,
and we‘ve been delighted with them,” Gary
explains. “We’d tried a variety of other
breeds to get the carcase we wanted before the lambs
got too fat, but to no avail - until we found the
Texels.”
Since then Gary has not looked back, with plans
afoot at the new farm to expand the flock further
alongside the herd of Aberdeen Angus beef cattle.
Currently, he runs about 50 cows and 180 sheep:
40 pedigree Texels, the rest being commercial crossbreds. The
majority of the lamb is sold to the local butchers
or at the farm gate, but some goes to the local market
where Gary’s lambs often fetch the top prices. Getting
those prices is a combination of several things,
including the breed.
 “The easy way is to run the lambs through
the scales, and if they’re heavy enough send
them to market, but you also need to handle them,” he
explains. “After all, it’s no good having
the best breed, the best feed, the best of everything,
unless you finish the lambs properly.”
This attention to detail, and subsequent success
at the market, has also done Gary’s ram sales
the world of good. However, when it comes to buying
rams for himself, the process is a little more complicated.
This year he purchased the ram lamb Wealdon Kingpin
from Tim Healey’s flock in West Sussex. However,
it took time to find the ram he wanted.
“As the breed has changed to meet the market
I think some of the character has been lost - but
for me that character is essential for successful
breeding. In addition I look for growth rate, muscle
and conformation because without these the Texels
are no better than any other breed.
 “As such, I am a great believer in recording
schemes - you need them, and they work: in
the time we have been in ETS our average carcase
weight has increased by well over 2kg. However, I’m
wary of the extremes: the huge rangy sheep with no
conformation, or the small, extreme types.
“What I’m looking for is the middle
road; if we can produce something with a bit of scale
and conformation we won’t be too far away from
what our customers want.”
Indeed, what the customers want, is very often what
they get when they visit Haslemere to collect their
half, or whole carcase of lamb. Farm gate sales are
a key outlet for Gary, as well as the local butcher,
who kills, cuts and packs the lamb for him.
The intention is to build the kind of reputation
which has the butchers asking after lamb from the
Bulls Bushes Flock, much like he has achieved already
through the farm gate sales.
“We don’t advertise, other than perhaps
providing a prize for the local charity draw, it’s
all word of mouth. What is important is to listen
to what our customers have to say.”
 This year, for instance, he has also taken steps
towards ensuring he can provide the customers with
lamb all year round - by using a Poll Dorset ram
on some of the unregistered Texels to produce some
Dorset x Texel ewe lambs.
“The theory is to put our Texel ram on those
to give us a three-quarter Texel born in October/November. It’ll
be interesting to see if the Texel ram works in May-time,
but if it does it’ll mean we won’t be
selling the majority of lamb in early June when the
price begins to tail off.”
Currently, all the lambing is in March; by the end
of June Gary likes to have all the lambs weaned. “The
grass tends to start losing a little bit of its goodness
by then, so we shut the ewes in tight and leave the
lambs to grow on the best grass.
 Gary swears by finishing his lambs off grass, especially
since switching to a red clover ley, and overcoming
the problems with molybdenum lock-up on the land.
He now supplements the feed to compensate for the
copper deficiencies the molybdenum was creating.
However, he is wary not to give the ewes, in particular,
too much in the way of other feed supplements. The
singles tend to come in a month before lambing where
they are put on straw ad lib, whereas the doubles
get ‘just the right amount of cake’.
“You can kill them with kindness,“ he
explains. “I don’t mind the singles milking
off their backs, but the doubles you have to supplement.
But at the same time, you don’t want to bring
them in too soon and give them too much cake because
then you’re faced with the problem of the lambs
getting too big.
“At the end of the day it’s all about
management: Texels are one of the best breeds, but
you still have to work to get the best out of them,” he
adds. |
