Livestock

The bTB positive alpaca was culled at the end of August following a campaign by his owner to save him

Cull companies are due to commence work this autumn

A competition to find a UK sheep farmer to front the Love Lamb Week campaign next year has been launched by the National Sheep Association (NSA).

English farmers can tap into free bovine TB advice and increased trained vet visits regardless of their risk status, following Defra granting the TB Advisory Service (TBAS) Successor Contract to Farmcare Solutions. 

As the year turns to its final third, the autumn sheep sales are starting with favourable prices which reflect the sector’s wider positivity.

As AHDB launches the next phase of its We Eat Balanced campaign, Mollie Leach looks at the work being done to reinforce the role of British farmers in sustainable, world-class meat and dairy production.

The Brown family from Aberdeenshire has built up a strong reputation for producing good quality grass-fed shearling rams and the best of replacement females for the commercial market each year. Katrina Macarthur paid them a visit.

With current subsidy payments gradually being phased out, there will be little margin for error for sheep farmers. Maximising productivity and efficiency will become increasingly critical to business resilience, and farmers will need to seek every opportunity to make incremental gains in flock performance.

Nine years ago Mark and Tracy Weekes’ cattle enterprise at Silverton, near Exeter in Devon was devastated by bTB leading to a change in direction for the business. Rebecca Jordan reports.

A new centre shearling ram record price of 32,000gns was set at the English National Texel sale at Worcester by the Williams family, Lampeter, with Caron Dynamite.