Top Picture: NSA Scotsheep hosts John Macfarlane, second left, and his son, Iain, centre, with Sandy Hay, left, head of agricuture with main sponsor, Bank of Scotland, NSA Scotland chairman, Sybil Macpherson, and organising committee chairman, David Leggat, executive chairman of United Auctions

THOUSANDS of sheep farmers from Scotland and the North of England are expected to attend NSA Scotsheep on June 4.

The biennial event is at the Berwickshire farm of Quixwood, just off the A1 at Grantshouse, courtesy of father and son farmers John and Iain Macfarlane.

The farm lies close to the A1 and is recognised as a very well-managed upland sheep and beef farm, producing high-quality stock.

Tours of the farm will include experts from SRUC discussing various management aspects.

Quixwood, and the adjoining farms of Ferneylea and Drakemyre, extends to 2,500 acres rising to 850ft. A further 200 acres are farmed by contract.

There are 1,500 ewes, 700 suckler cows, and 600 acres of winter wheat, winter and spring barley, winter and spring oats and beans, most of which are fed to the stock.

Trees provide shelter belts for the stock over 300 acres.

The farm policy is high output from home-grown feed and a minimum of bought-in concentrates.

A closed flock and herd policy is followed with all replacements bred on the farm and all lambs and calves, except female replacements, finished through to slaughter and sold deadweight to Scotbeef.

The flock comprises 300 Blackface ewes crossed with the Bluefaced Leicester to produce replacement females for the 500-strong Mule ewe flock, which is crossed with Texel tups. The Texel X Mule ewes are then put to the Suffolk to produce the slaughter generation.

“We are planning to take this policy one stage further by breeding our own replacement Blackface ewes in the future,” said Iain Macfarlane.

Ewes are housed in a large open shed after the new year and start lambing towards the end of February, followed by the hoggs in mid- March. The Blackface ewes are lambed outside from April 1.

They are fed a Total Mixed Ration (TMR) from a Keenan diet feeder of silage, beet pulp, wheat dark grains, turnip mix and minerals with access to Lifeline buckets.

The ewes, which this year scanned at 212 per cent, are penned individually, just after lambing. They then move to bigger pens in groups of ten for 24 to 48 hours before being turned out. Lambs are creep-fed with the aim of catching the early lamb market.

John Macfarlane said: “We push them hard to grow as quickly as possible. We start selling lambs at the end of May and draw for marketing every ten days or so through the summer.”

The suckler cows are a mixture of Aberdeen-Angus, Limousin, Beef Shorthorn and Simmental crosses. The Charolais bull, used as the terminal cross, is being phased out following the switch from selling stores to finishing everything on farm.

Cows are housed in slatted accommodation from November onwards following weaning – or earlier depending on the weather – and calve from April to June.

Cows receive silage and straw and calves are creepfed from July onwards.

About 120 bull calves are kept entire and fed a concentrate diet ad lib for finishing at 14-15 months of age.

Steers and heifers not required for replacements are wintered on silage, 3kg/day of barley, minerals and home-grown beans as a protein source, and finished out of the house the following winter at 650-700kg liveweight for steers and 600- 650kg liveweight for heifers.

Virtually all grade R or U.

Grassland management plays an important part in achieving high output. Grass is kept young and undersown with barley used as cover.

Bespoke mixtures designed specifically for the farm by Watson Seeds are used.

Regular dressings of both slurry and bagged nitrogen are applied and a clean grazing system is followed as far as possible with the sheep.

Other features on the day include an invitation sheep dog trial with 30 top handlers judged by Paul Turnbull, of Rothbury, Northumberland; a sheep shearing competition and an inter-regional sheepdog trial.

The trade stand area is sold out with more than 200 exhibitors, including more than 30 breed exhibitors.

Grassland management and soil health will be a major feature of the educational display by SRUC.

Other demonstrations include fencing, sheep-dressing, wool spinning and crook making.

There will be a farmers’ market with craft stalls and the day will end with a multibreed auction sale of pairs of breeding ewe hoggs.