Driving into the farmyard at Cragg Farm, New Hutton, one is immediately hit by the tidiness and smartness of the place. No rusting gates tied up with binder twine, sheep pens 3 inches deep in green stuff! No, a well maintained farm, which has been classed as the best in Westmorland by the Westmorland Agricultural Society's judges, who were as obviously impressed as I was with the effort put in by Peter Knowles and his son David.
Cragg Farm is a 270acre unit, and lies at about 700 feet above sea level near New Hutton, Kendal, right on the edge of the Lake District ESA, which the Knowles have been in for the last 6 years. The family has been at Cragg Farm for a "long, long time" according to Peter, who was born and raised on the land as his father was.
About 6 years since the Knowles's took a look at their sheep enterprise, and decided the future was not in buying Rough Fell draft ewes and producing Masham lambs, so they looked elsewhere. The breed they felt suited their needs best was not the most obvious choice, with many people in the area turning to the Swaledale ewe and the resulting Mule lamb, but rather the Lleyn sheep from the north Wales peninsular.
The farm now has around 270 Lleyn ewes which lamb at around 180%. They run the flock on an entirely pedigree system now, selecting the best of the tup lambs to sell as shearlings, and excess gimmer lambs at the autumn sale in Carlisle. Most of the wether lambs are finished on grass and sold at around 42kgs, which this year have been fetching around £35.00, £5-6 up on last year. The main Lleyn sale at Carlisle this year saw 5000 head sold, the biggest Lleyn sale ever. The Knowles saw their 165 gimmer lambs average out at £42.50 and their 5 tup Shearlings average £800, including a bid of £1000 for their best, which was placed 4th in the show of 28. The same tup had been the Lleyn champion at the Westmorland show this year. Last year an open day was held at Crag Farm on behalf of the Lleyn sheep society, and around 700 people turned up, interested in seeing more of this hardy, meaty breed.
Running alongside the sheep is a herd of around 50 Holstein Friesian milkers, producing an average yield of 6700kg, 3.97% fat and 3.25% protein, which isn't bad considering they tend to milk off younger cows, selling them at Kendal auction when they are 3rd calvers. Milk is being sold to Scottish Milk at 17p/l, which is better than the 13p/l they were getting earlier in the year. The milk is collected once a day now, after a while on every other day collection, Scottish Milk is aiming to sell the milk as fresh as possible. Milking is done twice daily, at 6.30 am and 5 pm. Cows are getting an 18% cake from Carrs at the moment. Silage is taken twice a year, which proves no problem with ESA regulations, as all the meadows are classed as arable leys. David has been trained in the practice of AI and does all the farms insemination, buying the semen from Semex, and using bulls which provide "value for money"
The Knowles's have also just built some new sheep pens and added a new drive for the B&B business with money from the Objective 5b Scheme, which provided a 40% grant, which has seen another way in which the management of the farm is taken. Peter believes that the future of farming within the European scheme of things will see farmers as park keepers and guardians of the environment, rather than food producers, and in the light of the new area payments, this could well be the case.

This article was writen by Waine Hutchinson for Farming in the North
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