Hollingworth Hall is a family run business, which like others is trying to keep costs as low as possible without sacrificing output, but at the same time meet the challenges of farming at the altitude and rough grazing on the slopes of the Longdendale valley, near Hyde.

Andrew Bland and his wife, Gemma, farm 750 Swaledale ewes and 50 Continental cross suckler cows on 340ha (840 acres) rising from 180m to over 380m. Performance and costs have been monitored for the last three years through EBLEX Business Pointers.

Hollingworth Hall's variable and fixed costs are average to below average, particularly with the sheep flock. The labour force consists of Mr Bland and some part-time help at busy periods, with his wife looking after the office and paperwork.

Sheep at Hollingworth Hall farm are a closed flock breeding pure-bred Swaledale replacements for selling and retention. Bluefaced Leicester rams are put to part of the flock to produce Mules of which the wethers are either finished or sold as store lambs.

Reduced costs

In recent years costs to the sheep enterprise have been reduced and performance of ewes improved. Moving from away wintering half of the flock to keeping most at home has had many benefits for the Hollingworth flock, helped by the opportunity to rent land closer to the farm.

Mr Bland used to away winter Swaledales near Preston, some 50 miles from the farm at an expense of £12 a ewe. This coupled with the added expense of transport and travelling time was also proving difficult to control ewe condition.

He was finding ewes would be too fat and unable to hold their condition once they returned to the farm having been on better ground. This resulted in feeding concentrates to make sure ewes didn't lose too much condition, as well as a greater cost from dealing with foot problems exacerbated by away wintering. But it also affected the amount of milk ewes produced which affected lamb growth after birth.

Opportunity

An opportunity to rent a further 70ha (173 acres) closer to home meant the farm could increase its forage area and help reduce stocking rates. For Mr Bland, having most ewes wintered at home also enabled him to better control the condition of ewes. He found they milked better, kept their condition so less concentrate feed was required (saving almost 5% of cost per ewe,) which saved time and expense in travelling to away ground as well as resulting in less foot problems.

In addition to this, the flock is pregnancy scanned and ewes sorted according to the number of lambs they are carrying. The level of concentrates fed is then matched to the number of lambs being carried, therefore, ensuring feed is optimised and costs are kept to a minimum. Concentrate is a high quality 18% crude protein fed from eight weeks to twin bearing ewes and six weeks to single bearing ewes.

With better control of ewe condition and the ability to monitor costs and benefits, the Hollingworth Hall flock has achieved 153% lambs reared in 2005 compared to 134% in 2002. A typical flock in a similar situation would achieve about 120%. Mr Bland feels this is important for an enterprise that has to supply customers with lambs in more than one outlet including for the breeding, store and prime lamb markets, but also to achieve enough output and margin to survive in the future.