Our Sheep
Our breeding flock originated with the purchase of four Herdwick ewes from Exeter Livestock Market in the summer of 2014. Inspired by our keen interest in the breed and its heritage, the flock soon grew with a trip to Cumbria later that year to purchase a small group of ewes and an unrelated tup from Mary Bell's Crookabeck flock. Annual trips to the Herdwick tup and draft ewe sales then followed and have now become a regular affair, providing an opportunity to purchase new stock and meet other Herdwick breeders and enthusiasts.
Tups
Our current stock tups have all either been bought directly from the annual HSBA breed sale at Cockermouth or bred out of stock originally bought down from Cumbria:
'Whetcombe Haytor' (2016) aka 'Dudley’ (HSBA 9169). He is by our original stock tup Crookabeck Edinburgh (Harry) - HSBA 6052, out of a ewe whose sire was reserve champion at Broughton in 2013. Dudley’s offspring have inherited his size, build and temperament.
Crookabeck - HSBA 9216 (2017) 'Joseph' was bred by Mary Bell in Patterdale. He is by a Gatesgarth (Gable) tup out of one of Mary's homebred ewes. We purchased him as a shearling in 2018 at the annual Herdwick tup sale in Cockermouth. Having retained several of his daughters he is now looking to move onto a new home. See our stock for sale page for further details.
'Whetcombe Jebel’ (HSBA A204) Homebred tup born in 2018, sired by one of our original stock tup 'Benson' (Side Pike) - HSBA 6729, out of an Ulcat Row sired ewe that we purchased from Susan Hill at the Cockermouth annual draft ewe sale in 2016. He is currently also looking for a new home so take a look at our stock for sale page for more information.
Ewes
Our ewes range from shearlings to full mouths and are all directly descended from the bloodlines of well-known Lake District breeders, including Kevin Wrathall (Cockley), Mayson Weir (Dowthwaite Head), Andrew Nicholson (Bank), Mark Potter (Ulcat Row) and Anthony Hartley (Turner Hall).
Although descended from Lakeland stock, they have adapted very well to life in the Devonshire countryside. They are normally put to tup in November with lambing starting the following April. Without being pushed they easily achieve lambing rates of around 150 - 170%. The ewes generally lamb without assistance and possess good mothering instincts. They are versatile, suiting both indoor and outdoor lambing systems.
Each year we retain a small number of the best ewe lambs to join our breeding flock. Only those who fit the breed standard will be kept.
Our ewes are quiet, friendly and easy to handle. They are easily rounded up or moved with a bucket of nuts (we don't have a sheep dog).
Lambs
April/May 2022 saw the arrival of our seventh crop of Herdwick lambs and a lambing percentage of 175%. As always, the lambs showed good vigour at birth. They are already growing in independence and their strong individual characters are starting to blossom.
All our lambs are allowed time to mature and are grown predominantly off grass alone. We normally retain some of the ewe lambs to add to our breeding flock but occasionally have some to sell on for breeding or conservation grazing.
Please contact us for further details.
Crossbreeding Herdwicks
Herdwick draft ewes offer excellent cost effectiveness for cross breeding, with low depreciation, minimal overwintering costs, strong demand from both live weight and dead weight buyers, and excellent potential for crossing with almost any terminal sire to produce quality butcher lambs of R3L grade and above.
We have put a small number of our ewes to continental tups over the last couple of years and have been really pleased with their lambs. They have grown well and finished at the same time as our commercial lambs.
You can find out more about the benefits of crossing Herdwick ewes from the HSBA here.