Photographs by Rob Haining

HILL sheep farming has never been the most popular of professions, but, bring in a new multi-purpose shed and an all singing, all dancing computerised sheep handling facility and the sector takes on a completely new lease of life.

Often ranked as one of the least profitable divisions within the industry, encouraging youngsters to live and work in the hills has always proved problematic. Add to that the remoteness, poor weather and loneliness which goes hand in hand working on such farms, and sourcing shepherds – of any age – and particularly those able to work a sheepdog, is becoming a real issue.

However, the new showcase sheep husbandry training centre at Newton Rigg College, in Cumbria, which not only provides a range of countryside management courses to include sheep dog handling for students and adults, looks set to reverse that trend.

Head of agriculture, Matt Bagley, has played a pivotal role in making the vision be and several other sheep farmers in the area, the new all in one training unit at the college’s Low Beckside Farm, Mungrisdale, replaces the traditional hill farming steading, and measures a nifty 36m x25m by 2.95m.

“We wanted a single space, multi-functional building that would serve the housing needs of the sheep all year round and a shed that would help increase productivity from the farm. It also had to make life easier for those working in the building, thereby making sheep work more pleasurable,” said Matt.

“It also had to be a unit where we could transfer knowledge to the industry, which in time would encourage young people back to the hills and uplands.”

Home to some 560 mostly Swaledale ewes, this farm is located on some of the hardest hill ground in Cumbria. As it is, average rainfall is roughly 66 inches per year, so the 168ha of in-bye peaty ground easily poaches, while the 3300ha of common grazing on the hard, rocky fell, “grows nothing but poverty,” according to Matt.

Needless to say, lambing outdoors was rarely the most pleasurable experience here, especially in a wet year and when there was little grass to put ewes and lambs onto. As a result, all ewes have been brought inside a couple of months prior to lambing in recent years, which has ensured more lambs are born alive, and has also helped to keep the fields fresh for ewes and lambs to go out on to.

In previous years, this saw roughly 280 lambed in one shed; 140 in another and 100 in the last shed. All three buildings were very much low, dark, antiquated sheds, and all water and feeding had to be carted to sheep in them. Disease and particularly joint-ill amongst the lambs, also caused problems.

This year, however, all ewes have been lambed in the one new multi-purpose building, and disease has caused few if any problems.

Concrete floored throughout, it comprises moveable AEA stock boards which have been used to construct large pens to hold and feed up to 40 ewes at a time for lambing, or a larger pen for when more sheep have to be contained.

In all, some 440 ewes can be lambed inside at any one time now, with the real beauty of the design being all sheep are easily seen from anywhere in the shed. Sheep are easy to access from anywhere in the building, as each square holding pen has walk-way and feeding facility on three sides.

Subsequently, such sheep can be fed concentrates on these three sides with the result being that more sheep can be contained in a smaller area with each ewe having adequate feed space.

Another unique feature is the fact that the feeding area round the pens can easily be shut down, thereby ensuring lambs cannot escape should ewes and lambs have to be contained for any period of time, ie when the weather turns bad, or at shearing.

Hygiene is paramount in any calving/lambing unit, and while most of the shed area at Low Beckside is concrete floored for ease of cleaning, the actual centre of the main penning area is made up of 2ft of hard core. This enables all urine from the sheep to drain away, reducing the level of bacteria in the straw and the amount of straw needed for bedding.

While the ewes lamb in the large straw-bedded central pens, once lambed, individuals and their progeny are brought into one of 100 moveable individual lambing pens constructed around the outside of the shed. Each pen has an individual hay heck and two buckets – one for water and the other for concentrate feed – thereby reducing wastage.

Here, lambs are given an anti-biotic, scour-halt drench and their navels are dipped in iodine. Male born lambs are also ringed and all are tail docked, before being carted out to grass with their mothers as soon as they are adequately suckled.

In contrast to previous years, when individual straw-bedded pens were covered in a disinfectant powder to reduce disease levels between individual lots, this year, Matt and Low Beckside farm manager, John Rowlands, have been removing all straw between lambers.

Cleaned out pens receive lime only now and a fresh covering of straw before the next ewe and her lambs arrive. Admittedly, this has caused additional work, but the cleaner, more hygienic environment has significantly reduced joint ill, Matt said

More importantly however, with the majority of lambing almost done, and the shed almost complete, the new unit has already made a phenomenal difference to the sheep and those working in it.

“Our second year students who did some of the lambing in the old sheds here and assisted in this new unit can’t believe the difference,” said Matt.

“It’s so much lighter, cleaner, airier, and an altogether nicer place to work and learn. Students enjoy being here, are keen to learn and are so much more enthusiast about the industry,” he said adding that many of the students were involved in the introduction of the new sheep handling system here.

“The sheep have also done better in a cleaner, lighter, more comfortable environment and because there is plenty feed space, they have not been as stressed being inside at lambing time. There has not been the same level of disease either.”

It’s not just a lambing shed though, this new state of art building constructed by Robinsons Scotland, based in Lockerbie, boasts a rainwater collecting facility which is linked to the adjoining sheep dipper, which in turn drains down into an underground tank.

The next door covered silage pit has also been converted into a cutting edge handling system featuring three different races – for electronically shedding sheep, dozing and foot bathing.

Hill-sheep farming may seem old-fashioned, but bring in the electronic tags complete with combi-clamp, electronic scales and reader and you soon get the young ones to sit up to take notice. And, with all ewes recorded on their ease of lambing, milk, mothering ability, number of lambs born, sex and sire of the progeny, selecting the breeding potential of the next generation becomes a dawdle.

For example, the electronically computerised shedder can draw off the heaviest twin-born ewe lambs as replacements at any particular time, which in turn should help to improve long-term productivity. Or, if required, only single-born ewe lambs can be selected.

Similarly, lambs of a certain weight to be sold through the store ring can be drawn off at the same time as those ready to be cashed fat.

As a centre of knowledge transfer, a fully computerised mobile fank has also been purchased hence enabling all work away from the steading to include all dozing and vaccinating to be recorded and down loaded.

Back at the farm, the new steading also boasts a mobile sheep reader which sheep walk through when they leave the farm. This not only records the tag numbers for movement records, but the life history of each animal to include sex, weight, medicines received and parentage, etc …

The college, which was taken over by the York-based Askham Bryan College in 2011 with a £3m plus investment plan, has not only updated its hill sheep farming facilities, but also introduced a new equestrian centre with large seated gallery and modern, state of the art dairy unit. The initiative, which has also had some support from the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, has also allowed for general improvements to the college campus.

The rewards are not only there to see visually, but also on paper as student numbers having been increasing year on year, with more than 600 now studying agriculture or other forms of countryside management across Askham Bryan’s 11 centres in the North of England. And, more are expected in the years to come.

Commenting on the initial plans for the building former campus principal Wes Johnson, said last year: “Our vision is that Newton Rigg College will become the UK hub for training and education in lands land management and sheep husbandry which will not only benefit students but the UK hill farming industry as a whole.” By all accounts it should too …