Texel breeders Neil and Debbie McGowan of the Incheoch flock, Alyth, Perthshire, have been announced as the 2018 AgriScot Scottish Sheep Farm of the Year, an award run by AgriScot and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) and sponsored by Thorntons Solicitors.
The couple farm a 485-hectare upland farm at the foot of Glenisla, running 100 pedigree Texels alongside 1100 Lleyn ewes on a low-cost sheep system in terms of capital and labour, along with a suckler herd. The farm uses EID technology and EBVs to help produce ‘functional, efficient and robust breeding stock’ and is one of the pedigree phenotyping farms for the Society’s research and development projects.
Prime lambs are sold to Woodheads but the McGowans also work with a local abattoir and butcher and sell 30-40 of their lambs direct to the public each year in bespoke retail packs.
Neil McGowan said: “Being announced as the Agriscot Scottish Sheep Farmer of the Year is great recognition to the effort that everyone involved at Incheoch puts into what all Scottish Sheep farmers try to do – produce a great product, sensitive to welfare and the environment, in a business that offers a way of life attractive to the next generation.”
Assessor and AgriScot board member Hamish Dykes commented: “We were incredibly impressed by the McGowans foresight and courage to go down their chosen path at such an early stage. Long before any of us knew what a Lleyn actually was, Neil and Debbie already had a flock of them and were preparing to start their on-farm ram sale.”
