Farmers in the north are set to learn about making more meat from grass at a grazing meeting near Nigg this week.
The first meeting of the Easter Ross Grazing group will take place this Wednesday at 1.30pm at Bayfield Farm, near Nigg.
It is one of six new grazing groups set up around the country by Quality Meat Scotland.
The host farmer Duncan Scott, along with his parents David and Gill, is looking to almost double the size of the family’s current flock, lower costs and increase the kilos of lamb produced per hectare from grass.
The farm itself consists of a 700-acre owned unit used mainly for growing cereals and 500 acres of locally rented upland grassland, including the Bayfield Farm which will be the focus of the grazing group activity.
The Scott family re-entered sheep production four years ago following a five-year absence with the purchase of 800 Cheviot ewes, which were then put to Easy Care tups with the female “Chevease” progeny retained.
However, the with the expansion of the flock, the family may look to introduce a Texel or Suffolk terminal sire.
“I became scunnered with Cheviots to be honest – we wanted something more suited to a simple system,” said Duncan.
The lambs are sold live through Dingwall and Highland Marts, and last year average 39kg with 180 sold as stores.
“At the moment we are not managing to finish all the lambs off grass and we need to use stubble turnips and some creep feed. We start selling lambs in December, with the majority going away in February, March and April,” added Duncan.
As well as running their 500-acres of cereals and sheep floc, the Scotts also run 70 Aberdeen-Angus cross and Simmental cross suckler cows.
The family said it is looking forward to hosting the grazing group.
Duncan said: “Our sheep enterprise is profitable and low hassle but we are undoubtedly understocked at the moment, and as we increase our flock size, I’m sure we can make better use of our grass.”