THE world of agriculture is notoriously full of hurdles and bumps in the road for farmers and landowners, but young Rory Gregor, of the Gregor’s Beltex flock, has had more than most to contend with over that past year or so. 
Based at Oakfield, just by Thainstone, Rory (25) runs his flock of 25 pure Beltex ewes alongside 100 or so cross commercial ewes, but his flock was devastated last year when 31 in-lambs ewes were stolen from their field, a week before being due to lamb. 
Over the last year Rory has been able to build back up his flock with home-bred and bought-in ewe lambs from 2014 coming forward for replacements.
“It really was devastating,” admitted Rory. “They literally disappeared overnight and although there is plenty of rumours about what went on, we have never found out where they ended up. 
“It was obviously shattering financially, but it has also meant I’ve missed a year in building up my flock. Overall, it just wasn’t an easy thing to come back from.”
Come back he has, though, and Rory certainly hasn’t let such an unfortunate event keep him down. He’s in the process of gearing up for his fourth outing to the Royal Highland Show and his show team is nothing short of impressive. 
Working full-time as a structural designer for Pertrofac, in Aberdeen, Rory fits his sheep work in around his working hours and he also finds time to go out contract shearing in the local area. 
“I could definitely do with more hours in the day, more often than not, but at the end of the day my ‘full-time job’ helps to finance my sheep job, so I have to find a balance. 
“I took on work gritting roads and car parks last winter to try and make up the financial deficit caused by the theft and that was definitely hard, but at the end of the day it’s been worth it to get back on something of a level ground.”
Rory is also the first to admit that success in the sale ring last year saved his flock, with two notable sales in particular really saving him from financial ruin.
He sells mostly through Carlisle and last year saw him hit personal bests with both his males and females. He sold the only tup lamb he had for sale, Gregor’s Achilles, for 9000gns to a consortium of five buyers. 
At the in-lamb sale, he went on to sell his full sister, the pre-sale show’s overall champion, Gregor’s Amber, for 1500gns. 
Both sale leaders were out of stock ewe 1825 and sired by Kingledores Wordsworth, a tup Rory bought for 4800gns at Carlisle three years ago in partnership with Jimmy Young. Wordsworth certainly has proved himself and that has done very well across the flock. 
“These sales really were a boost for me,” said Rory. “To all intents and purposes they made the flock viable again financially.”
Last year also saw Rory increase his stock tup options, with several purchases made at sales. He bought Tercrosset Action Man for 4000gns, at Carlisle, in partnership with Neale and Janet McQuistin, of High Airyolland, New Luce. 
Also at Carlisle, he bought a share in the 2800gns Luguat Alex alongside Ross and Kirsty Williams and Jimmy Young, and at Kelso he bought a third tup, along with Stuart Wood this time, Airyolland Weapon, costing them 4000gns. 
Rory explained: “Kingledores Wordsworth did very well for me, but these three tups were bought to inject new blood into the flock, and I’m very pleased with them so far. 
“Fingers crossed, this year’s lambs are looking promising! After the loss of most of my pedigree females last year I felt it was important to re-invest where I could in stock tups to ensure that I maximised the potential of the stock ewes I had left.” 
Rory got started in Beltex when he was still very young. “From a young age I competed in the Christmas Classic, at Thainstone, where my average quality carcase lambs were taking a lot of creative dressing to try and turn them into the Beltex quality carcase I was looking for. 
“Along with this, I was doing a lot of dressing through Young Farmers, winning both local and national competitions, so I thought it was time to invest in some Beltex to do the job properly. 
“That then led to me wanting to make them more profitable than just purely a hobby and in 2012 some friends and I went to Belgium to buy some Beltex.
“The breed seemed ideal to me for the carcase job and at that stage they really seemed to be taking off. They were and still are, sought after for top grade lamb production. For me they just cover all the bases and tick all the boxes of what I was looking to get into.”
Rory is ably helped by his girlfriend Joanna Foubister, who he met in Orkney when he was judging Dounby Show, last year.
“Joanna has been a great support this last 10 months” he admits. “I’m lucky she’s as keen on stock as I am and she’s really kept me motivated when things weren’t going well.”
Rory lambs early in the year in two main batches – one late January, where he hopes the lambs will be large enough and mature enough to go onto the summer shows and sales. Many of the lambs born then are out of early cycling, easy lambing recipient Suffolk cross Mule ewes. 
The second main lambing, in mid-March, consists of pure ewes, cross ewes and recipient ewes where the lambs are destined to run on naturally through winter for replacement females and recipients, or as shearling tups to be sold. 
Rory synchronises all of his ewes to all lamb within a tight time frame allowing him to take time off from his office job to deal with his lambing himself. 
He lambs in a polytunnel, having travelled to Oban last year to invest in a large second-hand one and he’s put his design talents to good use inside it, making a feed barrier system which makes the most of his space and minimises stress to the ewes and lambs at feeding times. 
One female that has done especially well for Rory is his show ewe, 383. Bought in from Belgium, she’s entered for the Highland this year, alongside two shearlings and a couple of tup lambs and ewe lambs. 
He’s hoping to do as well as last year, where his show team saw him take the champion group of three ticket and several top end tickets in other classes as well. 
“The Beltex classes at the Highland are notoriously big,” pointed out Rory. “So getting through the cut is always an achievement and I was over the moon to get placed. To win the champion group of three felt like a great achievement!” 
As far as the future is concerned, Rory is keen to keep on building on what he has, hopefully upping both his pure and commercial stock numbers. 
He admitted that his lack of owning a farm isn’t ideal and that the rental market in Aberdeenshire being so competitive and pricey doesn’t help, tending to outweigh a lot of the profit you can hope to make.
However, working with his current rotational grazing systems over a number of seasonal lets, it seems to be doing the job just fine as things stand! 
“I really just want to keep going how I’m going and, hopefully, things will keep building up and maybe one day in the future manage to buy a farm,” concluded Rory. 
“My aim this year is to, hopefully, have more stock to take to the pedigree sales, so we’ll see how we get on there. The Highland is the next big event in the calendar though, so we’ll see how we get on and take things from there! 
“I’m also judging at Braco and the Black Isle this season, so who knows, maybe one day I’ll have the honour of judging the Highland show,” he joked.
Rory has certainly done an excellent job of overcoming problems that would have signalled the end for some breeders, and with his positive outlook and keen eye, things are looking good for the future. 
And, with strong show team like the one in his field just now, his pen might certainly be worth a look in the sheep lines come the Royal Highland Show next week!