Lambing season and caving bans

[Dave H]

Split from Duncs Access Land in yorkshire topic

The only thing like that in the peak is 'Lambing' season. which affects a few caves. - JH, Rowter, and Longrake are the only ones I can think of.
lambing has never held much weight as a reason to deny access IMHO. The farmers dont deny access to the thousands of walkers that walk straight accross most of their land on public footpaths during 'lambing', or the off roaders that tear accross the green lanes by the fields yet they feel it necessary to stop the half dozen or so cavers from visiting one mineshaft in one of their fields.
Are sheep so terrified of humans that they miscarry if disturbed.
Never quite understood that one.

On the other, there are the rich estate owners, who may provide a bit of local employment, but ultimately are rich folk lining their pockets from the coin of other rich folk

Much of the Midlands is owned by the Insurance and Pensions companies, the 'traditional' landowners having long since had to sell up to pay death duties!
And almost entirely in my area, the 'estates' are run by firms of accountants working for the above companies, wringing out every last penny of EU money they can, rather than country folk who have spent years at agricultural college and understand the eco-structures of the countryside.

All of the 'wild places' of England and Wales are actively managed (farmed) in one way or another. For instance, Heather moorland has to be regularly burned to encourage new (and vaguely edible) shoots - remember that they all used to be woodland and that this is a man-made landscape.
In order to correctly manage an environment you have to place restrictions on its use. Again using Heather moorland as an example, you have to exclude the public when you are burning or shooting.

Are sheep so terrified of humans that they miscarry if disturbed.

Fart in the wrong key near a sheep and they can miscarry! There is so little money to be made from sheep that, if you owned one, you'd do anything to make sure that it was well and happy. For instance, last year a good fleece was making about £1, but it was costing £2-£2.50 to have the sheep shawn!

The only thing like that in the peak is 'Lambing' season. which affects a few caves. - JH, Rowter, and Longrake are the only ones I can think of.

If you think about where these caves are it should all become a bit clearer. JH is in a field near the farm house where the ewe's are brought in when they are nearly reaching term, away from the more outlying fields such as the one with Oxlow in it. (If you were going out every 2 hours to check the ewe's you would call it outlying!) These are the more vulnerable sheep and it's just an unhappy coincidence of geography that places then in the vicinity of JH and hence causes the restrictions.
This weekend, rather than take my children into friends lambing sheds and disturb their ewes, we visited an open farm. In all my (nearly 40) years I've only ever seen ewe's prolapse on a handful of occasions – looking around the open farm it was nearly a 10% prolapse rate! When I asked the shepherdess about this she didn't want to talk about it and would only answer “stress!”

Open access is good but, some restrictions to allow the proper maintenance and management of the land is a necessity.

 

[SamT]

f you think about where these caves are it should all become a bit clearer. JH is in a field near the farm house where the ewe's are brought in when they are nearly reaching term, away from the more outlying fields such as the one with Oxlow in it. (If you were going out every 2 hours to check the ewe's you would call it outlying!) These are the more vulnerable sheep and it's just an unhappy coincidence of geography that places then in the vicinity of JH and hence causes the restrictions.

Bunch of arse

Firstly - JH, Longrake, Oxlow and Giants all belong to 4 different farmers. So why do the farmers for JH and Longrake feel it necessary to deny access for lambing season, yet Oxlow (maskill/nettle etc) and Giants (p8 etc) remain open.

the distance between Oxlow cavern/oxlow house and JH/Rowter Farm is virtually identical

Also - JH lies about 10m off a public footpath. So why - doesnt the farmer ban access to those footpaths and green lanes - think noisy fart box off roaders.

Before you go on about the parking for JH/rowter and proximity to the farmhouse - They run a blinking campsite in the field next to the farmhouse with the public wandering accross the farmyard to use the toilets.

"fart in the direction of a pregnant sheep" - sorry - Ive spent time around farms in lambing season - how many farmers use quads to go out in the fields and check up on the sheep

Im sorry - its just not a good enough reason to close the land to cavers.

I know there is sod all we can do about it, and in the grand scheme of things, there are plenty of other places to go, but it just riles me that farmers can use it as an excuse to target cavers and cavers alone.

 

[SamT]

PS - Im not having a go at you personally Dave :wink: - I just think that the excuse of 'lambing' is full of holes and is just that - an excuse rather than a genuine reason.

 

[Dave H]

Oh Sam, I've put my foot in it here haven't I? oke:
You're the local and know the particulars of this situation. Now you've explained them a bit more it does sound more of an excuse in this case. But why would they wish to limit the source of income from cavers?

Obviously we must have rather 'nancy' sheep down here, not just your 'butch' northern types. <img href="http://www.nda.agric.za/docs/sheepscab/SheepSc0.JPG">

 

[kay]

But why would they wish to limit the source of income from cavers?

How much of an income source is it? In the Dales, the two farms I know of that charge for access charge, repectively, £1 per head, and 50p per vehicle. Not much of an income! Are charges elsewhere a lot higher?

 

[Dave H]

How much of an income source is it?

Sorry this is a bit long winded, but I think that it is rather important for people to know just how bad the situation is for the upland sheep farmer.
And it's not just them, the price for milk leaving the farm is less now than it was in the 1970's; but of course, it costs a lot more in the shops. :x

To give you some clue as to what the prices that farmers get for their stock; these are the average prices for stock sold at Melton Mowbray market on the 1st Feb this year.
Steers £1.02/Kg - a Steer will weigh between 550 & 650Kg
Heifers £1.00/Kg
Finished Hoggets (lambs) £1.11/Kg – individuals weigh 39-45Kg
Cull ewes £33.82 each

If we look at sheep in a bit more detail (averaged costs for my lowland area from a local college):
Concentrates £25/year
Vets bills £8/year
Forage £10.50/year
Total costs for a ewe = £43.5
Depending on the season a lamb could cost up to a quarter of that. £11

1.75 lambs per year @ 42 Kg provide an income over costs of £60/year per ewe
So on an average year the farmer would make £16.5 per ewe per year.

If a ewe only produces one lamb to slaughter per year it will be a break even situation.

None of these calculations include rent/rates/council tax/farm maintenance/fuel or even food for the farmer!

:arrow: The amount spent on concentrates and forage will differ in the upland areas, as will the weight attained by the lambs.

Thus you can see that just a few pounds a week from cavers makes a difference to a sheep farmer. And why they have to rely on subsidies in the upland areas where the land can't sustain large flocks and diversification is frowned upon.


Oops - let's just put my green wellies away! :evil: Ger'off my land an' stop mollesting my sheep!

 

[Mole]

Thanks to Dave H for those costings.

I've got a lot of respect for small scale/upland farmers,nowadays it seems to be a thankless task,especially the way they're screwed on prices by the supermarkets and conglomerates.
I wouldn't fancy working the hours they have to,particularly during lambing time,and severe winters.

Imagine being in a manufacturing industry and having to sell your products by auction six months later,with no guarantee how much they'll fetch,and you've had to pay your suppliers for the raw materials anyway.

Whilst access/parking fees bring in some income to some farmers,I don't feel it makes much difference to the farms financial situation really.

A farm is a place of work,caving/walking/climbing is a pastime.

 

[cap n chris]

Surely "diversification" = "not farming".
If the future of farming is not to do farming, why do farmers still farm?

 

[Mole]

If farmers don't farm,where do we get our food from ?
I for one wouldn't be keen on imports,the suppliers would have us by the short and curlies.

 

[graham]

... the suppliers would have us by the short and curlies.

Like they haven't now

 

[kay]

Thus you can see that just a few pounds a week from cavers makes a difference to a sheep farmer.

Then I wish they'd charge a bit more. The Devonshire estate charges about £4 to park at Bolton Abbey - I'd be happy to pay a lot more than 50p to take my car up to Birkwith. I'd come to the conclusion the charge was less to do with income and was more to do with establishing that there was no right of way.

 

[kay]

If farmers don't farm,where do we get our food from ?

What proportion of our food is home grown?

 

[tiggs]

If you want a couple of Lamb Chops in the supermarket its £5+ thats disgusting if you think how much a farmer will have (not) made on the lamb BLOODY SUPERMARKETS

 

[SamT]

Hmm - seem to have gone off topic slightly - sorry - opened a can worms with the old lambing season. Might try and split this topic, if I can get it to work.

 

[SamT]

Hurrah - it worked.

So - supermarkets. Pretty shitty state of affairs.

I was listening to the radio a few months ago and the talk was about milk shortages.
last year I think it was 30% of dairies gave up the ghost, with a predicted further 50% next year.

MILK SHORTAGES!!!. In our green and pleasant land. If that ever happens then the government want a rocket up em.

The sooner the oil runs out the better. That way, it will become to expensive to import stuff and life may return to some sort of natural balance again.

 

[Dave H]

Sorry I'm about to go off on one again

I was listening to the radio a few months ago and the talk was about milk shortages.
last year I think it was 30% of dairies gave up the ghost, with a predicted further 50% next year.

Firstly there is a quota on how much milk a farmer can produce (EEC). When the quota scheme for started, if a farmer stopped producing milk the quota was supposedly brought into a central pool from where new entrants could buy it at a reduced rate. The National Young Farmers said that this quota was just disappearing and that there are no new milking herds. Hence we were getting a totally artificial shortage of production.
There is quite a thriving business these days selling and leasing quotas. Prices this year were up to 13.84p/l for buying and 6.29p/l for leasing quota. But volumes of milk quota being traded (both lease and purchase) remain significantly below those of the same period last year. Cumulatively 333,202,446 litres have been leased up to 28th February 2005, down 43.8% on last year. Volumes permanently transferred are cumulatively down 64.2% at 599,087,631 litres.

The national average prices at the farm gate for a litre of milk have been:
2001 : 19.14
2002 : 17.04
2003 : 18.01
2004 : 18.56
These are the lowest prices in the whole of Europe. The prices are only kept this high by intervention which will drop in the latest CAP (EU Common Agricultural Policy) reforms by 2p/l

If you have to buy quota at 13.84p/l and the cows to produce it and the feed for the cows, and yet you are only going to be paid 18.56p/l for the milk; it's quite easy to see why there are no new-entrants into milk production. A good cow will produce 7,000l milk per year.
The national herd has reduced from 2,475,000 in Dec'02 to 2,133,000 in Jun'04
For the farmers still hanging on in dairy production the national average figures show dairy farm incomes reducing from £32,300 in 1996/7 to £17,000 in 2003/4.

How many of you would get up at 04:00 to start the first of two or three milkings of the day, feeding, stock checking, and maintenance of machinery and the land until at least 17:00, to try and keep a family on £17,000!?

The dairy will be making 2.3-3.0p/l profit [Robert Wiseman Dairies Mar'04]
Robert Wiseman Dairies, Dairy Crest and Arla Foods UK have the supply to supermarkets wrapped up, so the average milk producer cannot shop around.
If an independent dairy can't find a major retailer to supply then they will go out of business, and that is exactly what has happened over the last few years.
Doorstep deliveries become more expensive as their market reduces and many dairies providing this service are going out of business. The only local dairy stopped its doorstep business last year so I have to buy from the supermarkets now, much against my wishes.

The average price to the consumer has risen from 77.2p/l in Jul'01 to 78.9p/l in Jan'05 although Safeway say they make ONLY 8-10p/l profit [Parliamentary Committee Mar'04]

If the farmers are only getting 18.56p/l, the dairy getting 3p/l profit and the supermarket getting 10p/l profit then that means 47.34p/l of every 78.9p/l sold is going into the collecting, pasteurisation, packaging and distribution!

<B>The fair solution, as always, is the local distribution, of local produce, for a reasonable price.</B>

If the consumer would pay for local produce, rather than just buying the cheapest at the supermarket, then the British farming economy can survive; if not we will continue exploiting the developing nations and importing ‘fresh' produce from them.

 

[Dave H]

Oh, are you wondering how/why I know all this stuff, despite designing military and aerospace electronic systems and software for a living?
It's because I grew up in the countryside, worked on farms as a child, joined Young Farmers (rural youth club and dating agency!), married a farmers daughter, was Northants YFC County Chairman, sat on the East Midlands Committee, sat on the National YFC Council, have 'retired' back to Northants as a County Vice-President, and am breeding a new generation of Young Farmers.

The over-riding reason that I'm selling the in-laws farm at the moment, rather than taking it over, is that I can earn far more in one month of my office job than a year on the farm!

Farming has to be a vocation; at the moment it can never be a money making job, and it requires far too much commitment to be a hobby! :rip:

 

[SamT]

The fair solution, as always, is the local distribution, of local produce, for a reasonable price

Weve just started having our milk delivered by teh milkman - is working quite well for us.
Also get our veg delivered by a local organic box scheme. Costs slightly more than the old supermarket but the feel good factor of supporting local business is worth the extra cost.

In actual fact - our monthly shopping bill has gone down as we seem to go to the supermarket much less and hence are less tempted by things we dont really need.

 

[Stu]

My partner went to the supermarket four times last week! Shocking really and I bet we could vaguely justify it to ourselves. Bad state of affairs though. Ironically she was brought up on a farm in Wales. Thread has got me thinking though.

Sam, does local milk delivery service mean locally sourced milk? Assume it does but is it stated?

 

[bubba]

I'm going more and more down this route - we've got a really good local butcher and fishmonger (in Woodseats) and I'll always go there instead of the supermarkets now. We have most of our milk delivered but not sure if that means it's local produce or not.