March 2018
With lambing time getting underway, catch up with the latest news from Yorkshire Water’s ‘Beyond Nature’ Farm at Humberstone Bank, near Thruscross reservoir.
This week Humberstone welcomed two lambing students to boost the staff team for a couple of weeks. Ieva and Matthew are both first year Veterinary students at Liverpool University and need to fulfill a commitment of 12 weeks practical work in their first year – starting with 2 weeks of lambing. Ieva has had some experience working on a fully automated dairy farm in Denmark (so not quite so ‘hands on’ as Humberstone!) and Matthew has spent a little time lambing on a farm near Ripon.
Ieva and Matthew are really keen to put the theory that they’ve learned so far at Liverpool into practice – and are enjoying working with the ‘real’ thing – despite the cold wind and early mornings.
Lambing of the mules at Humberstone is well underway with the usual mix of problem free births and a few more challenging situations. In the last day or two there have been a couple of adoptions – one text book perfect with the mother accepting her new lamb (just a single) without batting an eyelid and another ewe not quite so keen on having an additional lamb to add to her own single – though she’s got plenty of milk for two so the plan is to persevere.
In the background to all of this Jonathan is currently trying to find time to prepare the farm’s application for a new 10 year Environmental ‘Higher Tier’ Stewardship Agreement. With a ream of options on offer this is a massive piece of work. (The manuals with all the options set out are 329 and 184 pages…)This is the one thing that will have the biggest influence on the way the farm is managed in the years to come so it needs really careful consideration.
Jonathan is trying to strike the right balance for water quality, wildlife conservation, livestock and moorland management – which goes right to the heart of the Yorkshire Water ‘Beyond Nature’ vision for the farm. The deadline for submission is 13th April – so time is tight, particularly when the days are so full with lambing.
On the wildlife front the Spring birds are making themselves heard – with the first curlew appearing a couple of weeks ago. The farm also hosted a training day for volunteers from Nidderdale AONB’s ‘WildWatch’ project, which focused on surveying for reptiles and successfully pinpointed the home of Humberstone’s resident adders.
The next few weeks will continue to be taken up with lambing – the Swaledales are due to start in early April. A bit of warmer, drier weather will help in getting some ewes and lambs turned out to free up space in the shed. Fingers crossed that Spring is not far off.
Humberstone Bank Farm joined Yorkshire Water’s ‘Beyond Nature’ vision in September 2016, with Jonathan Grayshon taking on the tenancy of the 904 hectare upland farm above Thruscross reservoir in Nidderdale AONB. The Vision for the farm is to demonstrate Humberstone Bank as an exemplar in upland management for water, biodiversity, carbon and farming and sporting enterprises.
BeyondNature 