Marketing under the spotlight at Lochaber meeting
The meeting of the Lochaber monitor farm on Thursday October 11 – rescheduled from September 18 – will explore a variety of market options for lambs on the west coast of Scotland.
Chris and Malcolm Cameron run Strone farm, Lochaber’s monitor farm near Fort William, and, like many farmers in the area, are keen to explore the options for finishing the lambs they produce.
The Camerons run a flock of 550 North Cheviot ewes and a herd of 40 Limousin cows on their 1,200-hectare farm and recently took on a tenancy on an extra 42 hectares of grazing land at Fassfern, which is where the meeting on October 11 will be held.
‘How hill and mountain farmers like ourselves improve the light lamb product they currently offer was one of the issues highlighted at the Vision of the Hills and Mountains meeting we hosted earlier this year,’ said Chris.
‘The event gave us food for thought as to how we can do things differently at Strone, and the extra grazing land we have rented certainly gives us more options for managing our stock.’
At the meeting on October 11, Rory Stodart from Mill of Inverarity Farm in Forfar (the Angus monitor farm) will talk about what he, as a store lamb buyer, looks for when buying lambs to finish.
The Stodarts began buying store lambs in 2016 and in August 2017 bought 208 of Strone’s wether lambs to finish in addition to their own lambs.
‘We were looking for longkeep lambs as we have found there isn’t much of a margin in shorter-keep lambs,’ said Rory.
‘We were keen to explore different breeds of hill lambs, including Lleyns and Cheviots,’ he added.
Although the partnership between the two monitor farms was declared a ‘win win’ by both farming families, now that the Camerons have taken on a tenancy of an extra 42 hectares of grazing land and some sheds just 11 miles from the home farm at Strone, they have decided to trial finishing all their own male lambs this year.
The progress of the lambs, including their weights, has been monitored over the summer and an update on their progress will be shared at the meeting.
The meeting, which begins at 11am and ends at 3.30pm will be in a shed at Fassfern, not at Strone Farm. Use postcode PH33 7NP for directions. A cold lunch will be provided.
To book your attendance, contact Niall Campbell on 01631 563093 or email fbsoban@sac.co.uk. For more information about the monitor farm programme visit www. monitorfarms.co.uk.