Based in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, Lakeview Farm specialises in breeding pedigree Suffolk and Bluefaced Leicester sheep. We caught up with Gary Beacom to find out more about this exceptional family business which has established itself as one of the island’s premier pedigree sheep farms.
Lakeview Pedigree Livestock certainly isn’t your ordinary, everyday sheep farm. Gary Beacom, who runs the elite operation alongside his father Charles and brother Lee, is widely recognised as a leading pedigree sheep breeder in Northern Ireland, synonymous with producing exceptionally high-quality pedigree Suffolk and Bluefaced Leicester breeds.
He comes from generations of farmers, although he points out that it was only seven years ago that the family moved from the shores of lough Erne where the Lakeview prefix was born, Kesh, Co.Fermanagh to the Clogher Valley Farm: “This family farm which was purchased by my father, Charles in 2009 and comprises of just over 100 acres all in one block on which we constructed a new purpose built pedigree livestock unit.”
“My dad kept suckler and dairy cows but due to health reasons in the late-90s he stopped milking. We established a flock of pedigree Suffolk Sheep in 1996 and kept sucklers and pedigree Belgian Blues up until 2013, at which point we decided to disperse the cows completely and increased the sheep numbers.”
At present, including ewes and lambs, the Beacom’s run up to 1,000 animals during peak times. This includes some 180 pedigree Suffolk ewes and hoggets, 75 pedigree Bluefaced Leicester ewes and hoggets, and 300 cross ewes and hoggets, plus lambs. The cross ewes are kept mainly as recipients for embryos from the pedigree flocks.
Lakeview Pedigree Livestock is also renowned for carrying out extensive embryo transfer work and is one of the biggest in the UK in this particular line, flushing some 30 pedigree ewes per year. Gary finds ET is a fantastic tool to help multiply elite genetics but at lakeview only ewes that have good maternal and commercial traits are selected for the flushing team.
Regarding Lakeview’s status as one of the largest and most celebrated pedigree sheep farms on the island, Gary notes: “There’s great ground in Clogher Valley and the land is ideal for livestock farming. There’s a good mix of farm types here; my neighbours would vary between dairy, suckler and sheep farmers.
“We specialise in elite pedigree stock as opposed to commercial sheep production. The majority of our stock is for the pedigree breeders market and are sold predominantly at sales on the UK mainland. Our rams are sold from seven months old and go to the breeds National Show and Sale at Shrewsbury and Northern Area Show and Sale in Stirling, Kelso ram sales, while we also sell at breeding sales across the North of Ireland. We also sell around 100 pedigree females at sales, Balmoral in November and Carlisle in December, and have sold breeding stock into Belgium, Italy and Germany as well as across the UK and Ireland.
“We started attending a new sale in Carlisle last year and sold 37 females to average 1225gns, so we’d be hoping to sell 40-45 there every year from now on. We also sell some embryos of our better-breeding ewes.”
Quality permeates everything that happens on Lakeview Farm and this requires significant investment of time, expertise and funds. The Beacom’s pay top price for their Suffolk breed stock ram every year – this had set them back 36,000gns, 25,000gns and 20,000gns respectively in the last three years alone.
The top prices received for rams at sales have been 15,000gns, 9,000gns, 7,000gns, while the top price recorded so far for females was 9,000gns – in December, 2015 whilst other females have sold at 7,800gns, 7,400gns, 7,200gns, 6,000gns.
“Myself, my father and my brother Lee all work here full time,” says Gary. “We do all the work ourselves, with the exception of seasonal labour at lambing time. We have a purpose-built unit here and that leaves the labour load a good bit lighter.”
The sheep are housed from end November until early spring and go out to grass from mid-February, with lambing taking place in the first two weeks of January and the first week in February and March. Diets are strongly supplemented by haylage and high-quality feeds, sourced mainly from nearby Fane Valley Feeds.
The operation runs like clockwork and sheep breeding at this elite level is more akin to science than traditional farming. “Everything is programmed and pre-planned,” Gary confirms. “For example, I always know the dates for AI and for lambing in advance and we can plan our helpers etc. around that. You have to be constantly thinking ahead and keep everything ticking over smoothly.”
Going forward, Gary intends to tweak the business model somewhat, moving more and more towards breeding 100% pedigree sheep, both Suffolk and Bluefaced Leicester. “The changes I intend to make are to increase the size of the pedigree flocks and to decrease the amount of embryo transfer work carried out.”
Lakeview Farm has been selected as Supreme Suffolk Champion at the Balmoral Show six times and was reserve champion twice, having won the Championship the last 4 consecutive years. This kind of prestigious recognition is indicative of the elite pedigree stock being bred on a consistent basis by the Beacom’s in Fivemiletown.
“We are breeding Suffolk sheep with a better carcass now and have been concentrating on clean black hair, tight skins with no wool on head or legs. This results in more vigorous lambs and daughters that are milking better.”
“The Suffolk breed is coming back strong, Ive used all breeds of continental rams over the the years on our cross bred flock, and couldn’t find any of them to compete with the suffolk growth rates or the suffolk hardiness against bad spring weather” Gary concludes. “There is a lot of enthusiasm for both the suffolk and blue faced Leicester breed amongst the younger breeders coming into the industry and its a great time to be breeding elite pedigree stock.”
Lakeview Farm
97 Ballagh Road,
Fivemiletown,
County Tyrone.
Tel: 0044 7929 908510
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 5, June 2016
