July - 'Belties' come to Grange Farm
During a trip to this year’s Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh I became fascinated by the Galloway cattle of South West Scotland, and in particular the very distinctive ‘Belted Galloway’, a woolly coated black cow with a bright white belt around its middle.
Chatting to some of the breeders at the Show I became fascinated by the long history of this very hardy breed and decided to start a herd in Yorkshire. Watching the cattle in the ring, my Scottish host casually dropped into the conversation “Of course, if you want something really rare, why not breed ‘Riggit’ cattle – possibly the original cattle native to Galloway in the 19th century, and thought to be extinct, until by a chance crossing of two Galloways in the mid 1990’s, each carrying the Riggit gene, this throwback to the 19th century was born.”
A few other Galloways have been found to carry the same gene and now there are around 50 Riggit females and a handful of bulls.
We have managed to acquire 8 heifers (females) and are hopeful to purchase a young bull in the near future.
Tim Wilson
July - All in a days work!
Anthony Rooke and Pete Smith visit Grange farm to clip over 700 Mules in a day. Both Anthony and Pete are competition shearers and have represented England in clipping competitions. In their highly skilled and efficient hands each sheep can be fully clipped in just over a minute. Once clipped the wool goes to the Wool Marketing Board in Bradford ready for for use in the production of sweaters, blankets, clothes and carpets.