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Hambleton Farms
About Us
We grow traditional breed beef and lamb in a traditional way, but we are anything but traditional farmers. Andrew has worked in the food industry all his working life, but the sale of his company in 2000 allowed him to move into the agricultural side, and saw the arrival of our first few Longhorn cattle. From small beginnings large things grew, and we now farm over 850 acres in Rutland, half in arable (wheat, oil seed rape and beans), and half in pasture for our herds of Longhorn, Aberdeen Angus and Dexter cattle plus Hampshire Down sheep.
We are committed to conserving our landscape and environment; we have planted over 25 acres of broadleaf woodlands on arable land and, under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, planted a kilometre of new hedges and restored nearly three kilometres of scrubbed hedges. We have 75 acres of conservation grazing which is covered by wild flowers and plants; the cowslips in the spring are magnificent. We use wide field margins to enhance the landscape and provide food and shelter for animals, plants and insects.
The farming year is a busy one, especially on a mixed farm. Our cattle range outside from the end of April to early November, and over winter in large airy barns with their herds. We normally take the bulls away from the herd in the winter; they will have worked hard all summer and need a bit of 'R and R' before the next spring. We try and calve our herd inside in the spring; it gives us a chance to help with any problems and make sure the youngsters are fit and well at turn out. Inevitably not all births have occurrred by the time they go outside, and we will keep a close eye on the herds when they are in the fields to check all the born and unborn stock. Lambing also takes place inside; we lamb in two groups, in December and in March. We like to shear the sheep before the warm weather really starts; foot trimming, worming and 'dagging' (removing muck that gets caught in the wool near their backends) happen all year round.
Feeding and bedding the cattle in the winter inevitably takes up a lot of the day; we grow and bale our own silage and straw in the spring and summer months to see us through the winter. For cows this is their only feed; calves we also feed our home grown oats. All the cattlesheds need mucking out once the cattle have gone out, and the muck spreading back on the land.
The arable calendar is quieter during the winter months but hectic from July to October when we harvest and store the grain and then cultivate and sow the new season's crops. In the intervening months there is a program of spraying and fertilising to produce the best crops we can.
In between these routine activities we tend to hedging, fencing and water troughs, maintain all the tractors and equipment in good order, keep up with all the bureaucracy and administration now needed to run a farm, make hay, trim hedges, try and keep the electric fences working...
