The hub of operation is Cliftoncote, spanning 1,000 acres, which has been in the family for 41 years. Ali’s father Paul, having spent time as a shepherd on the west coast and as a farm manager for Buccleuch, took on the tenancy alongside his wife Angela, from the Roxburgh Estate. Originally stocked with Cheviot ewes, a transition to Blackfaces occurred over the years, building the farm up to a traditional upland stratified operation, lambing the Blackies pure with an additional draft flock put to traditional Bluefaced Leicester rams, with a proportion of the resultant Mule ewe lambs retained for breeding.

Recently shorn tup shearlings, for use at home or for selling in the back-end Ali and Claire now farm Cliftoncote under a contract farming agreement, but the meat and bones of the stratified system still remain. They are assisted by daughter Emma, son Thomas, and brother Daniel, with a full-time stockman also employed. Thomas and Daniel focus on the machinery contracting business, while also running 140 Salers cross Hereford sucklers producing store cattle and females for sale. Paul and Angela, now semi-retired, are still actively involved in the business, and regularly help out with day-to-day jobs.

All the sheep are teasered across all units, due to the number of holdings and stock that need to be shepherded, thereby ensuring a compact lambing and uniform lamb crop for tail docking and marking. Teaser tups go out for two-weeks and then tups go in for 24 days, with only females born in the first cycle retained. Tups are run in multiples, in groups of two or three, with the only ewes single sired being the Bluefaced Leicester and stud Romney flocks. Regular blood testing is undertaken, with boluses being used and all stock is vaccinated with Heptavac P Plus.

The grazing management is reliant on clovers, as no money is spent on artificial nitrogen. Instead herbal leys are used, which have been found to be more drought tolerant and performance boosting for the flocks, as well as rotational grazing with large-mobs being implemented. The hill ground is utilised for buffer grazing and set stocked.

The pure Blackies, numbering 600 ewes, are now based at the top of the valley, at the 1800-acre Calroust, owned by the Roxburgh Estate.

Ali says: “We have our own style of Blackies, they are a bit more scopey and more commercial than the Lanark ones. They are out-and-out hill sheep, fed no concentrate, and wintered on the hill with about three tonnes of blocks, scanning at 140-150%.”

Romney sheep are recorded for key traits to build efficiency and profitability For ease of management, the ewes are taken back to Cliftoncote for tupping and then return to the hill in December. Within the flock there are four families, with tups from each family rotated, and no tups bought-in.

Ali and Claire added that they ‘don’t train horns,’ with the business now at the point where they are able to sell a few shearlings privately, with the majority of stock being marketed via the Border Livestock Exchange.

If a ewe is handled for lambing then she is ear notched and not bred pure from again, with other issues such as big bags seeing the same result.

“We have a strict policy with feet. If we treat a sheep once and the problem is fixed then that is fine, but if a treatment is repeated then it is sold cast, and that is across the entire business.”

The pure Blackies are lambed in parks and then sent to the hill as lambing progresses, with twins staying in-bye until mid-summer.

Hoggs are wintered at Calroust, on some of the lower fields. “We dip in the autumn and then put a pour-on the ewes after scanning. We quite like the hoggs to get tick bitten, so we don’t treat the hoggs then.”

Wedders are fattened on kale and turnips, with hoppers put out if needed thereby ensuring all are away by February.

Some 500 Blackface ewes are put to traditional-type Bluefaced Leicester rams, with the ewes offered beet and silage. “We can strip graze some fodder beet and can also blast it out with the muck spreader. They do really well on it…beet is like mars bars for sheep!” said Ali.

About 150 Scotch Mule ewe lambs are sold privately, with 250 kept on as gimmers and then sold to a regular buyer, again through the Border Livestock Exchange.

“We haven’t got time for dressing sheep and taking them to market, so it works really well for us. The auction marts are a good thing though, and we sell Bluefaced Leicester shearling rams at Kelso”.

Claire looks after the Leicester flock, lambing around 35 to 40 ewes, having built up the flock steadily over 25 years, under the Bowmont prefix.

“They get snackered with concentrate around six weeks prior to lambing, and then once they have lambed, we turn them out during the day and then bring them in at night for a couple of weeks. Post-lambing, they are snackered for another six weeks, and then they are off the feed again.” Claire says.

Leicester hoggs run with commercial hoggs, on cover crops or grass throughout the winter with the sale shearlings fed from the last week in July, about six weeks before the sale to get them in sale condition.

Romney tup shearlings

Home-bred tup lambs are fed a little bit of feed prior to tupping, just to flesh them up a bit.

Home-bred tup lambs are used on the Blackface draft ewes, being worked for two weeks and then swapped around for fresh ones, before being sold.

Bluefaced Leicester shearling averages at Kelso are around the £1400 mark, with a flock best of £2300. Ali said they have a good following for their tups, with most of the buyers being Cheviot Mule breeders that like to buy from them when the sheep are bred off hill ground.

Outwith the traditional breeds, the family has also embraced Romneys, a breed offering an efficient and profitable system. The original purchase of Romneys came in 2020, when Ali and Claire’s daughter Emma was looking for an easy-care breed from which to get started building her own flock.

“Ali had worked with Romneys in New Zealand and knew a little bit about them, so we started with two or three ewes and then bought a few more,” said Claire.

“They never put a foot wrong. Thinking about Emma coming on-board, and from what we had seen with our own little flock, Romneys seemed to be the way forward.”

Some 600 pure Romneys are now kept on the 300-acre Old Graden, rented on a year-to-year lease, with a stud flock of 50 managed and recorded by Emma.

The stud flock provides the tups for the main pure flock, with recording again done traditionally, through keeping records from handlings. Ewe lambs bred within the stud flock are tupped and are not retained if they do not hold within the first cycle.

Mothering ability is assessed at lambing time through Emma tagging the lambs. “Some of them are right in my face whilst trying to write things down,” remarked Emma on the mothering instinct of the Romneys.

The next step to the recording of the stud flock will be more comprehensive, says Ali. “We will probably go onto the New Zealand scale system, of weighing lambs with scales at birth and then recording eight-week weights and so on.”

Although basic, the core values of feet, skins, milking and mothering ability are assessed, with 12 to 15 shearlings sold through Border Livestock Exchange each year. One or two stud tups are bought to replenish genetics, purchased from Locks Farm in West Sussex, formerly known as Wairere UK.

All the Romneys are shorn twice a year, the later shearing being undertaken in September.

“The downside to the Romneys is that they are woollier… so we are trying to tighten the skins up a little bit…and if we can do that then there will be a good market for them,” said Ali pointing out that their ideal size is around 75kg.

The B flock, numbering 500 ewes, are also tupped by a Romney for April lambing, both A and B flocks scanning between 170-180%. Meatlinc tups are used for chasing up with the family having used these for 20 years, purchasing them each season from George Fell at Yorkshire Meatlinc.

These sires also go to the 1200-strong Romney cross and Meatlinc cross early lambing flock, based at the 550-acre Cherrytrees, contract farmed for 15 years.

The most intensive of the Freeland-Cook’s enterprises, these end-of-February lambing ewes scan at 180-185%, and are fed concentrate prior to lambing, three weeks beforehand when they enter the sheds from grazing kale outside. After turning outside, the ewes are snackered until April, where creep feeders are then put out for the lambs, with attention turning to the other flocks. The Meatlinc lambs finish well, and are born with a tremendous amount of vigour.

Three-quarters of the 1800 lambs to sell are sold before the Highland Show, capitalising on the early lamb market.

“There are not the same amount of people in the early lambing job anymore, due to the costs involved, and the need for staff. We have an Irish lamber who has come for a number of years and is very good,” Ali stated.

“You need to get your costs right. We know our exact feeding costs, and if we get things right with the management we are between £8 to £12 per head.”

Home-bred Romney tups are also used on the 1400-acre Belford on Bowmont which is home to 1300 Perendale ewes, on a contract agreement with a neighbouring farmer, in its sixth year. The ewes are tupped twice with the Romney, and then once through with the South Country Cheviot, in order to breed a smaller ewe to suit the hill ground. Recording also takes place, with a B flock again running with the Meatlinc.

“We have increased the scanning rate to 175%, by culling the empty ewes, and also simply by not leaving the tup out as long, as we were a bit kind to them when we first started up there,” stated Claire.

All lambs from Belford on Bowmont are either sold fat before weaning, or sold store afterwards, due to a lack of in-bye fields. Border Livestock Exchange market the surplus ewes, and this year will see the first a genuine crop of Perendale draft ewes for sale.

A further 600 ewe lambs, consisting of pure Romneys and Meatlinc cross Romneys are also put to the tup. They are put onto cover crops at Primsidemill, a 240-acre block owned by the Roxburgh Estate. The pure Romneys are put back to the Romney tup, whilst the crosses are put to the Shetland, for ease of lambing. Having previously lambed inside, the ewe lambs are now on an outdoor system, lambing at the end of April.

“Tupping ewe lambs is fickle,” says Ali. “Sometimes you can do the same thing as you did as last year and you are 10% down on your scanning.”

The ewe lambs are tupped and then rotate around cover crops on arable farms 10-15 miles away until February, where they then go back onto kale. Grazing wheat on another farmer’s crop aftermath has also been trialled, with the Freeland-Cooks investing in a Rappa electric fence system that has enabled them to take on grazing land that wasn’t previously stock-proof, with the stock being electric fence trained.

“The wheat grazing has been very interesting, and I think it will become more popular. The sheep reduced the farmer’s disease burden considerably, and this is something that really excites us for the future, and we would like to get involved more with arable farmers,” stated Ali.

With big numbers of lambs being drawn for sale, that are batched into weights at weaning, the Freeland-Cook’s have to be organised.

“We communicate with Logan Rees and Brian Ruthven at the Border Livestock Exchange, and we are always at least a week in advance. We work with Woodheads, and can sometimes shift 700-800 lambs within 10 days, so we have to let them know what is going on due to the numbers involved.”

Lambs are killed out at 42-44kg, but this is flexible depending on the price, with the overall aim being to get most lambs to 21kg on the hook.

Cull ewes and cull tups are again sold via Border Livestock Exchange, and mostly head to Longtown market to be sold.

Looking forward, the Freeland-Cook’s would like to provide a profitable business for future generations that also maintains a lifestyle, without becoming ‘busy fools.’

“As a family business, the family aspect is important. “We have learnt to be adaptable, and our business is able to change if something is not working. It is all about planning the cash flow, and staying ahead that way, which also takes the risk out of things. We are keen to attract young people to come and work for us, as we are doing everything here – from lambing Blackies on the hill to creep feeding early lambs, to recording Romney genetics”.