A Recent Scholar

From an early age Richard Oglesby had known that what he wanted to do was farm livestock and he never had any interest in doing anything else. He bought three sheep at the age of 11, left school and went on to study for a Diploma in Agriculture at Bishop Burton College. Having graduated he set out to get a degree in Agricultural Management at Askham Bryan College whilst working on a local farm graduating with a good degree in 2015. He then followed one of his dreams and worked on livestock farms in Australia and New Zealand. Having returned from his travels he started his own business whilst also working full time for a local farmer. His sheep numbers were built up to a point where in 2021 he lambed 700 lleyn ewes crossing with a Charollais terminal sire while putting a proportion of the ewes back to a Lleyn Ram to produce his own replacements.

Ambition for Independence

At this time his main goal was to to find a farm tenancy and to have enough livestock to be able to farm in his own right and make a living without having to work for anyone else. There were then a number of initiatives including a substantial bed and breakfast pig unit, a new cattle enterprise and further development to grow the cattle side to take advantage of the relatively buoyant cattle trade and get into a position to marry his fiance Jenny and look out for a secure long-term tenancy.

The Henry Plumb Foundation Bursary was seen as an invaluable help to the business to continue its forward momentum. Richard Nelles of Thistleyhaugh Farm nr Morpeth, Northumberland was his Henry Plumb mentor and his farming system had been highly thought of by the Oglesby’s for some time. This provided the last piece in the jigsaw to allow the next step to be taken. Richard and his fiance Jenny became Mr and Mrs Oglesby and there are a number of photographs to prove the point!

In Richards' Own Words…

…At Meadow Farm Jenny and I’s sole aim is to produce beef, lamb and breeding sheep on a forage based system. We are first generation farmers and therefore have little infrastructure. Stock need to be able to thrive without a roof over their heads 365 days a year. We currently Lamb 850 Lleyn ewes, a nucleus flock of 550 going back to the Lleyn Rams to produce breeding replacements and the remaining 300 to Charollais or Hampshire rams. The Lleyns are all pedigree registered, Signet Recorded and in an M.V Accredited health scheme. All lambs are finished off grass leys or stubble turnips. 

The Cattle Side

The store cattle are all dairy cross, we started off with 52 British Blue cross dairy heifers and have more recently moved onto 70 Angus cross dairy heifers and steers. The Angus’ were purchased through Blade Farming, we made this move as we believe the native Angus will finish better on our forage based system and also we do not have the capital outlay at purchase which is a massive help with cash flow. 

Typically cattle come in spring and are grazed for two summers then finished at the back end of their second summer. The stores come in between 16-20 weeks old, when they arrive they have been on an ad lib concentrate and straw diet. On entry to Meadow Farm the stores are fed 2 kg a day of concentrate and depending on time of year, grass or ad lib red clover silage with straw to transition them to a grass diet. After two weeks the stores are well transitioned into silage or grass and we start to cut back the concentrate and after 6 weeks they will be on a purely grass diet. The cattle are left outside for as long as possible but were brought into an outdoor yard on the 23rd of December and turned back out on the 15th of March. The aim is for all stock to be finished off farm by 20 months of age. In the future we aim to extend our outdoor grazing period to 365 days and also reduce our days to kill with improved daily live weight gains through rotational grazing. 

What HPF has meant to us

The most helpful part of the Henry Plumb Foundation experience has been the assignment of my mentors Duncan and Angus Nelless at Thistlehaugh Farm in Northumberland. The Nelless Family are running 2000 Lleyn ewes and calving over 200 Angus and Hereford cattle on an organic forage only system. It has been invaluable to us being able to have the Nelless at the end of the phone for advice and were particularly helpful when we established our red clover leys. We have thoroughly enjoyed our trips up to Thistlehaugh farm to learn from Duncan and Angus how they are finishing cattle on grass using rotational grazing and outdoor wintering using bale grazing and deferred grazing. It is truly remarkable the system that they are running at Thistlehaugh farm and I am sure this has got to be the future of British Livestock Farming. Jenny and I came home invigorated and full of ideas for the future and are going to try outwintering some of the cattle on a Kale and bale grazing system this winter. We are very much looking forward to our next trip in winter to see their outwintering systems. 

The Funding provided by the Henry Plumb Foundation has also been a huge help to us to purchase and build our infrastructure for our new beef enterprise. Thank you very much for all your help.