Jennifer MacKenzie is an agricultural photo journalist with almost 30 year's experience. Operating from her base in Cumbria, Jennifer undertakes mainly industry-related freelance writing and photography.
East Fourstones Expansion
The Armstrongs at East Fourstones near Hexham have expanded their farming
enterprise into agricultural contracting.
Robert and Anne Armstrong were joined on the tenanted beef, sheep and arable farm two years ago by twin sons William and Stephen after they completed their HNDs in agriculture at Harper Adams University College in Shropshire.
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| William, Robert and Stephen Armstrong and the contracting equipment |
The 23 year old brothers saved the money they had earned during their year’s work placement while at college - William on a large arable unit in Essex and Stephen working on a vast arable and vegetable growing estate in Nottinghamshire - and invested it in equipment for the new venture.
As well as purchasing a Kverneland five furrow reversible plough they also
chose to buy less usual equipment in order to provide a specialised and
increasingly sought after services.
They have a Veenhuis Terraject Disc 10,000 litre slurry injector with 6.5
metre workwidth. “It is 80 per cent more efficient to inject slurry
and it is likely to be a future requirement in NVZs,” said Stephen.
The injector can be used on both grassland and arable land and it has less
taint of the grass meaning that the ground can be stocked sooner than after
spreading with a conventional spray plate system.
The unit can spread 40,000 litres an hour and has a swinging draw bar which
prevents the machine following the same track as the tractor to minimise
ground impaction and damage.
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| The Welger small square baler and Cook bale sledge and the Veenhuis slurry injector |
Their other purchase is a Welger high capacity small square baler for both
hay and straw which is coupled with a Cook hydraulic belt driven bale sledge
which can handle wider swaths of grass.
“We have already had a lot of interest in the baler from both farmers
and people wanting small bales for horses which we also sell ourselves,” said
William. They also carry out fencing work and offer tractor and man hire.
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| William, Anne and Stephen with Mr Foxtrot and Jack Russell terrier Wizz |
An earlier diversification 10 years ago took on board Anne’s passion
for horses and includes a DIY livery for six horses, an outdoor school
and a mile long uphill training gallop which is regularly used by racehorse
and point to point trainers and top event riders in the region.
Both William and Stephen share their mother’s love of horses and
this year William has been putting East Fourstones on the map winning prizes
at shows with a skewbald cob both under saddle and in hand.
William and the six year old 14.1hh gelding Mr Foxtrot was third in the
in hand class and fifth in the ridden classes on their very first outing
at the Northumberland Show, followed by a fifth place at Richmond and a
third place in hand at the Royal Highland Show.
The 340 acre farm has been run by the Armstrong family since 1936 and quiet
and easy to manage Hereford cattle have featured for 40 years.
Seventy acres is cut twice for silage and barley for home use is grown
on 60 acres while the rest of the farm is grazing ground for up to 290
head of cattle.
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| Stephen, left, and William with stock bull Free Town Casanova |
These include a herd of 27 suckler cows, 16 of which make up the pedigree
Fourstones Hereford herd. Eventually all the cows will be pedigree Herefords
and currently seven are home bred.
All the cows - the remainder are Angus cross Limousin - are put to the
Hereford bull. Crossbred calves along with Hereford-sired dairy bred calves,
mainly December to April born, which are bought in are finished at 22 to
26 months old and sold direct to Waitrose for its Hereford beef scheme.
“We have had Hereford cattle from since they first came into the
area. Prior to foot and mouth we had a Bluefaced Leicester flock but after
2001 we decided to concentrate more on cattle and we established the pedigree
Hereford herd with cattle bought from John Douglas’s Ervie herd at
Stranraer,” said Robert.
“The Hereford was just what we were looking for - they are so quiet
and have a good temperament which is a big consideration when moving stock
as we have a railway and a busy road crossing the farm. They are low input
cattle and selling the majority to Waitrose makes us as much money as if
we had Limousin crosses,” he added.
The Armstrongs also favour the superior eating quality of the Hereford
beef and continue to buy their beef from the home of the Ervie herd.
Each year the family shows cattle at the Carlisle May Hereford society
sale and this year two heifers in calf to stock bull Free Town Casanova
made 1,400 and 1,500gns each. They were by Ervie Standard Lad and Fourstones
Paul.
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| Hereford and Angus cross cows with their Hereford-sired calves at foot |
Recently two females from East Fourstones went to help re-stock the herd
run by the Elms private school near Hereford which had been lost to TB
The farm has dry, light land which allows the hardy Hereford cows to be
outwintered before calving from the end of March and into April. In the
spring the land is then ploughed out for cropping.
The farm also used to carry a Mule flock but now to ease the summer grazing,
draft Mule ewes are bought in in the autumn and sold the following May
with Suffolk sired lambs at foot at Hexham Mart.
Stephen Armstrong can be contacted on 07833 197820 and William on 07920
884065.
