Gordon Capstick
Gordon Capstick
Gordon and Mary Capstick
farm 230ha (569 acres), at
Milnthorpe in south Cumbria.
Stocking is 100 suckler
cows, with calves finished
alongside 100 purchased
stores, and 1200 Mule ewes
producing prime lambs.
About 10ha (25 acres) of
barley and 6ha (14 acres) of
soft fruit are also grown
RESTRICTIONS become ever tighter at Park House with four different blocks of land, two within the Penrith spur and two outside it.
Levens Hall Park is restricted to summer grazing and sheep should have been out by Oct 15. Not much chance of that. They need to move inside the spur and I have been trying to sort this out with DEFRA whose only solution was the welfare scheme. Where are next years lambs going to come from, Iwonder?
Most of my tups are also in Levens Park, so lambing will be later this year. But as one old shepherd used to say, "there is nowt better than lambing with your jacket off and the cuckoo singing."
We have sold no prime lambs for a month because of the poor price being offered. Had others done the same, the price would be nearer £2/kg by now. I am green with envy at high Irish and French lamb prices.
I wait with baited breath for Lord Haskins report. When he made those brilliant remarks about us being more like French farmers I only wish we received similar prices for our produce.
We are currently living in difficult times, with events such as the Afghan war. It is time to batten down the hatches and support each other.
Winter is arriving here and most of our suckler weaned calves are housed. It has been a good summer for them and they have come in heavier than the past few years.
The land was becoming heavily poached so I had to take action to preserve grazing for sheep. Shock of the month was the price of bedding straw and we seem to use a lot. We are trying rye straw and I will let you know how it performs.
As county NFU chairman, I recently invited Tim Bennett to the south of the county to see at first hand the problems we are facing with movement restrictions.
He returned shocked by what he saw and is trying to get things moving. But the big wheels at DEFRA move around slowly. *
Cattle have grown well on Gordon Capsticks farm, but have now been housed to avoid poaching.