Archive Article: 2000/12/22
Peter Delbridge
Peter Delbridge farms 162ha
(400 acres) in the Exmoor
National Park, near South
Molton, Devon. The farm is
mostly permanent grass,
classed as less favoured and
environmentally sensitive,
and all above 300m
(1000ft). It is stocked with
800 ewes, replacement ewe
lambs, 60 spring calving
sucklers and their followers
IT is still raining. Our local BBC radio station recently stated the last dry 24-hour period was back in mid September. Every cloud does have a silver lining, however, and heavy rain coupled with sheeps feet are going some way to rectifying the damage inflicted on pastures by cattle hooves.
The continuing prolonged heavy rainfall has meant most of the farm is now only accessible by quad bike. How we would manage without this machine is difficult to imagine.
We have an ageing diesel Polaris; although cheap to run, it does seem to need its fair share of tinkering with. With a chain drive system, most of the engineering is not rocket science and can be maintained by a farmer without the need for an expensive mechanic. Is this the shape of things to come?
With grass growth at a standstill and finished lambs making £6-8 more than last year, I was encouraged to feed Mule ewes 0.25kg of sugar beet daily during tupping and for three weeks after. Hopefully, this will result in more eggs being shed and a higher percentage of these being successfully implanted.
Despite less than ideal tupping conditions, I have been surprised at how quickly ewes have been mated. Several have been freshly raddled each day when I have fed the Bluefaced Leicester tups with a little much appreciated concentrate.
Our intended connection to the mains is taking on the farcical proportions of a US presidential election. The residents self-help group that was begrudgingly given permission to install underground ducting duly completed their work on time.
But it appears that greedy Western Power Distribution, who are in charge of installation, wanted to keep all the 5b funding for themselves. WPB sub-contracted out to Northern Electric who in turn sub-contracted out to a firm called Flexer, which was supposed to pull the cable through the ducts.
There was not quite enough room for three snouts in the trough and Flexer went into liquidation. In addition poles have been wrongly sited and have had to be moved or taken down because of their environmental impact. As a result, we are still not connected and relying on our old generator, which is using red diesel with 3.1p/litre fuel duty on it. *
It may not involve any rocket science, but Peter Delbridges quad-bike has been invaluable recently.