about balliefurth farm
One of our bulls | Patrick! | Lambs |
---|
The animals
We have just over 70 breeding shorthorn cross cows and out intention is to bring this up to 80. There are two bulls on the farm: Chapelton Esquire and Alvie Jack Frost. At any one time there are about 80 fattening cattle on the farm.
Sheep: We use Highland Mule ewes which is a cross of a Blackface ewe and Blueface Leceister tup (ram). We cross these with a Texel tup. We run with about 190 ewes which usually produce in the region of 280 lambs.
Bees: We operate 6 bee hives and we have recently started to sell our delicious honey in the Farm Shop.
The land
This Highland farm is situated between Grantown and Nethy Bridge in the Cairngorms National Park and compromises 180 hectares (400 acres) and includes 43 hectares of natural woodland which we use for grazing, We have a bank of the Spey River and the Speyside Way walking route comes right through the farm.
It is rich environmentally with undulating fields, low fields which are famous for wading birds such as Curlew, Redshank, Peewits, Oystercatchers and more..
The aspen trees in the woodland support Aspen Hoverfly and Dark Bordered Moth.
Roe deer and brown hare are frequently seen on the farm.
The people
Abby and Patrick Harrison purchased the farm in 2014 from Alastair and Ann Maclennan.
Victor Watson joined Patrick and Abby at the start of 2017 to help manage the farm.