A HEREFORDSHIRE farmer says he has invested in the sheep of the future.

Edward Collins of Bearwood Farm, Pembridge , was looking for a special breed of sheep when establishing a new flock on the 800 acre family farm.

The farm had possessed an award winning flock of north country Mules for many years but due to a restructure of the business it was sold a couple of years before Edward returned.

This gave him a blank canvas to introduce a new sheep flock for the future.

After researching a number of breeds, Edward decided the lleyn ewe was best suited for the system at Bearwood.

This is a medium sized ewe that is easy to care for in every respect which was a major consideration for Edward as there is no labour employed at Bearwood – the arable land is farmed under a separate contract farming agreement.

In recent years the lleyn ewes have been bred pure, however, in the past Edward has used the charollais and the vendeen ram on the lleyn ewe with great success.

The Lleyn is a milky ewe and a very good mother which easily rears two lambs off grass with minimal use of concentrate.

“Ease of lambing” is also recorded and in the past four years Edward says that he needs to assist on average 1 in 80 ewes.

This is essential as there is no extra lambing labour and a significant amount of time is taken up recording and weighing new births.

The lleyn ewe flock at Bearwood regularly wins the Weobley and District Agricultural Improvement Society’s best managed flock competition and was the Midland Lleyn Club champion flock in 2010 and 2011.

Edward aims to finish the lambs off grass and most are gone by October.

He sends his slaughter lambs to St Merryn Meat, Merthyr Tydfil.

At the end of the season the average carcase weight across the slaughter lambs is 20kg.

The majority of ewe lambs are sold for breeding at Lleyn Sheep Society sales or privately off the farm.

Performance recording and blood testing his stock rams for the Myomax gene has improved the quality and weight of the carcase and also shortened the time from birth to slaughter.