Richard Oglesby 31 Northumberland
Richard has made impressive progress in the industry from his initial entry to sheep farming as a teenager with just a handful of sheep. Now, alongside his wife, he runs 1,440 mostly Lleyn ewes plus 800 ewe lambs on land as part of a contract farming agreement. Richard’s passion for the industry was clear to see during his ambassador interview as he explained his involvement with several projects that can help further progress within his own flock and the wider UK sheep sector. He comments: “I very much enjoy being part of industry peer groups, they give me chance to continue my learning of the industry from a range of enterprises, something I am passionate about, whilst also sharing our experiences to hopefully assist others.” Richard is already a member of the NSA Northern Region committee so will be well placed to share the benefits of this level of involvement with NSA to the group this year.
Feb/March Update
2024 continues to be wet, although we have managed to get the ewes back outside with a few dry sunny days at the beginning of March. They were brought inside mid-January and winter clipped, they have been inside on silage for 6 weeks and it was nice to get them back out onto a fresh bite of grass. It is surprising how much the farm has greened up and how much grass covers have grown even in February.
We were a bit disappointed with our scan this year dropping from 185% last year to 165% this year. We don’t want a massive scan for outdoor lambing but 180% is ideal. We have put this down to a few possible contributing factors, moving farms from Yorkshire to Northumberland last July and sheep needing time to adjust, ewes being naïve to ticks and also not quite the grass covers we were used to in previous years. This year’s plan is to implement the 20 days of gold grazing method pre tupping and also do less single sire mating. Ewes will now be on a pre lambing rotation until set stocking at the start of April ready for lambing from the 14th.
April/May Update
After a long and awful winter, we were lucky that the weather turned as we started lambing on the 14th of April with all the ewes lambing outside. Lambing has gone well with a good number of lambs growing well with the recent warm weather and grass growth. We did however have around 20 ewes abort throughout lambing, blood tests came back as Tick Bourne Fever so we will have to investigate how we can control this better going forward. We have also had a problem with joint Ill in lambs born outside due to the wet ground conditions, something we wouldn’t normally expect lambing outdoors.
We recently purchased 35 pure Easycare in-lamb ewes, something we have thought about for a while and decided there were too many reasons to try them to ignore. Wool comes with a cost, and we are also conscious of the public eye and potential tighter legislation against tail docking, something which wool shedding eradicates the need for. All ewes lambed unassisted and lambs seem to be growing well. The plan is to keep the best Easycare ram lambs and start crossing them over the Lleyn ewes to keep our own bloodlines without the wool.
Richard has made impressive progress in the industry from his initial entry to sheep farming as a teenager with just a handful of sheep. Now, alongside his wife, he runs 1,440 mostly Lleyn ewes plus 800 ewe lambs on land as part of a contract farming agreement. Richard’s passion for the industry was clear to see during his ambassador interview as he explained his involvement with several projects that can help further progress within his own flock and the wider UK sheep sector. He comments: “I very much enjoy being part of industry peer groups, they give me chance to continue my learning of the industry from a range of enterprises, something I am passionate about, whilst also sharing our experiences to hopefully assist others.” Richard is already a member of the NSA Northern Region committee so will be well placed to share the benefits of this level of involvement with NSA to the group this year.
Feb/March Update
2024 continues to be wet, although we have managed to get the ewes back outside with a few dry sunny days at the beginning of March. They were brought inside mid-January and winter clipped, they have been inside on silage for 6 weeks and it was nice to get them back out onto a fresh bite of grass. It is surprising how much the farm has greened up and how much grass covers have grown even in February.
We were a bit disappointed with our scan this year dropping from 185% last year to 165% this year. We don’t want a massive scan for outdoor lambing but 180% is ideal. We have put this down to a few possible contributing factors, moving farms from Yorkshire to Northumberland last July and sheep needing time to adjust, ewes being naïve to ticks and also not quite the grass covers we were used to in previous years. This year’s plan is to implement the 20 days of gold grazing method pre tupping and also do less single sire mating. Ewes will now be on a pre lambing rotation until set stocking at the start of April ready for lambing from the 14th.
April/May Update
After a long and awful winter, we were lucky that the weather turned as we started lambing on the 14th of April with all the ewes lambing outside. Lambing has gone well with a good number of lambs growing well with the recent warm weather and grass growth. We did however have around 20 ewes abort throughout lambing, blood tests came back as Tick Bourne Fever so we will have to investigate how we can control this better going forward. We have also had a problem with joint Ill in lambs born outside due to the wet ground conditions, something we wouldn’t normally expect lambing outdoors.
We recently purchased 35 pure Easycare in-lamb ewes, something we have thought about for a while and decided there were too many reasons to try them to ignore. Wool comes with a cost, and we are also conscious of the public eye and potential tighter legislation against tail docking, something which wool shedding eradicates the need for. All ewes lambed unassisted and lambs seem to be growing well. The plan is to keep the best Easycare ram lambs and start crossing them over the Lleyn ewes to keep our own bloodlines without the wool.
