Life here at Warren Farm flows with the seasons; while our glamping pods, tents and cabins are currently closed for winter, we haven’t had much time to put our feet up. As a working farm, there’s always plenty to do to keep our livestock healthy and happy in the colder months.
At this time of year, our cattle are tucked up safely in our sheds, and our sheep are out grazing on other farms. This is a way for neighbouring farmers to help each other out: with cattle penned for the winter, the pastures can suffer. The grass continues to grow slowly during the colder months and if it’s not grazed, the damp can encourage a disease that effectively burns off the ends of the grass, depleting its grazing value.
The solution is to bring in flocks of sheep to keep the grass grazed. We pay local dairy farmers to let us graze our sheep on their land and this also gives them a bit of extra income during the winter months.
Our sheep are Beulah Speckled Face – a hardy breed that originated in the uplands of mid Wales. We raise our lambs for meat and in January and February we start marketing the lambs that were born in May. Most sheep breeds in the UK – including ours – come into season in September and go out of season in January. The ewes carry the lambs for about five months, so the lambs we’re marketing now are the last ones conceived in 2022.
Our eyes are also set on the coming wave of new lambs. We have 1400 ewes in total and expect about 1500 lambs to arrive from the end of April and during May. Spare a thought for our rams, who are required to impregnate about 40 ewes each!
Beulah Speckled Face ewes are quite small, placid and easy to care for, but from a commercial point of view, the downside is that they usually only produce one lamb at a time. A handful has twins and very occasionally one will have triplets – in which case, one of the lambs should ideally be reared separately because each ewe has only two teats. Beulah Speckled Face ewes are good mothers, so their lambs tend to do well.
Besides our sheep we have about 80 suckler cows. They’re Aberdeen Angus crosses, and the term ‘suckler cow’ relates to our method of meat production. With suckler cows, calves destined for meat production are raised and fed by their mothers, whereas when meat is produced from dairy cows, the calves are raised separately so that the mothers’ milk can be collected for human consumption.
Our cows and their calves will stay in their sheds until February, after which we’ll separate them so the cows can have an eight week break before getting ready to give birth again. Calving begins in April – and with the new lambs arriving from the end of the month, hot on the heels of the new calves, it’s a very busy period for us. It’s also a great time to stay with us if you want to meet the new arrivals.
In the winter the cattle feed on hay and silage, both of which we produce during the summer months. While they’re in their pens, we get busy with other tasks on the farm – particularly planting.
Winter is the best time to plant trees because they are dormant, so the planting won’t disrupt their growth. Last year we planted 6000 trees on the farm, plus 1600 metres of hedgerows. This is typical of the work we do on our land during the winter months, along with maintenance and fencing.
Trees and hedges are especially important for us because our farm sits on a plateau high above the Cheddar Gorge and 1000 feet above sea level, so they provide shelter belts for the animals to get behind. They also act as field boundaries and serve an environmental purpose, helping to support biodiversity on our land.
Other than that, we’ll be spending the month getting ready to open our accommodation again. Our glamping pods, cabins and tents tend to fill up quickly with bookings after New Year, when people start planning for the year ahead – and with a wood-burning stove or range on hand to keep you cosy, our accommodation is ready to welcome you even if there’s still frost on the ground. If you’d like to join us, head to our accommodation page now to book your break – we’d love to welcome you.
