Features
AT HOME WITH THE CHAIRMAN
It was
a privilege to find Victor Chestnutt at home! The
new Chairman of the Texel Sheep Society spends a
sizeable part of each week away from home, where
he farms 400 acres at Clougher Farm close to the
Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. His main interest lies with the Texel breed, but
he’s also a pedigree cattle breeder with Charolais,
Limousin, Belgian Blue, and Angus breeds. It
means that much of the day to day farming work falls
on the shoulders of his petite and unassuming wife,
Carol. [more]
BETTER BREEDING AT BALLYHAHONE
In 1990 a 14 year
old Richard Henderson founded the Ballynahone Pedigree
Texel Flock on the family farm near Tobermore, Co
Londonderry. Less than a decade later he had brought
home the Royal Ulster Texel Championship from Balmoral
Show and established a sound reputation for producing
quality stock. Growing up on a farm with commercial
ewes, mainly half Texels, put back to Texel tups,
Richard was quick to appreciate the market friendly
characteristics of our carcass breed. [more]
TEXELS
AT BENGALL
The breeding flock of Texel
cross ewes, producing ¾ Texel
lambs is the most profitable sheep enterprise on
a Dumfriesshire farm, which in the autumn has over
2,000 sheep of all sorts, shapes, sizes, types and
ages running on the 760 acres farmed by the Reid
family.Bengall is the home farm of three units near
the town of Lockerbie, the other two are Bengalhill
and Shillahill. These three farms are the domain
of Jim and Irene Reid and their three sons – Robert,
James and Lindsay.
[more]
LANDMARK FOR BULLS BUSHES TEXELS
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. [more]
TEXELS IN NORTH DEVON
Texels will be the terminal tupping
team in the future all sheep farming system of
Bill Geen and son Matthew who farm a total of
700 acres, based around their home, Great Combeshead
near North Molton in North Devon. The Geens have
decided to concentrate all their farming efforts
on prime lamb production and are expanding and
developing their current flock of 1,300 ewes
into an easily managed, premium earning enterprise,
with a target figure of 2,000.
[more]
ORGANIC TEXELS IN SELKIRK
Texels
are securing the valuable organic premium in an organic
livestock enterprise in the scenic Ettrick valley
in the Scottish Borders. Alistair Wilson and his
family run two farms on the Buccleuch Estate, a few
miles south west of the historic town of Selkirk.
The home farm is Hutlerburn, where Alistair Wilson’s
family has farmed for over half a Century. [more]
HONEYHILL
TEXELS – a new flock
The
way to Kimbolton takes you across a broad sweep of
lowland plateau, dissected by a number of shallow valleys.
It is an empty, gently undulating landscape with expansive
views of large-scale arable farmland growing cereals
and oilseed rape. This is not typical sheep country
but when you do come across a sheep it’s
inevitably a Mule and, come the autumn, tradition
dictates that it’s in the company of a Suffolk
ram. But according to John Williams that’s about
to change.
[more]
TEXELS RULE IN HIGHLAND PERTHSHIRE
The achievements of David and Elizabeth Stewart
of Glenshee, Perthshire at the annual Strathardle
Show, held in their heavily sheep populated county,
would surely be worthy of consideration. For the last
23 years their Texel-blooded sheep have proved unbeatable
at Strathardle, which attracts up to 80 pens of two
prime lambs from many of the numerous large sheep enterprises
in the area. [more]
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