We run about 900 Romney ewes on the South Coast of Cornwall and started keeping them 18 years ago. Our ewe flock spend most of their time grazing low input permanent pasture. Prior to buying Matt and Pippa’s rams we had felt that our ewes had lost some of their hardiness and increased in size which is also undesirable in our system. In my opinion this had happened because several ram studs now are operating as part of an arable system which doesn’t put their sheep under heavy pressure.
I was attracted to buying rams from Matt and Pippa as their sheep don’t get much access to clean grazing and they have a very heavy stocking rate, which gave me the confidence that their rams would come here and throw females that will really thrive. It is very clear in the 3 crops of lambs we have had from these rams that their lambs are outperforming our other lambs with the use of a lot less wormer.
The sheep at Trefranck are also very correct on their feet standing very upright. The wool type also stands out as being a lot less attractive to blow flies, something which is extremely important to us in our mild climate.
Edward Venning
Sheep and Beef Farmer (South Coast, Cornwall)