First generation sheep farmer, Felix Johnson-Gibbs, has embraced trial and error to accomplish a seamless system. Having tried out a number of different sheep lick buckets to find the best performer, Crystalyx comes out on top as his firm favourite.
Felix Johnson-Gibbs started his farming journey aged only thirteen, with only passion and determination to his name. Seven years on, Felix has his own flock of one hundred breeding ewes, and runs fifty ewe lambs each year.
“I’ve always wanted to farm, but it has been difficult and hard work getting into it. Hats-off to anyone brave enough to do it”, opens up Felix. “I’ve farmed since I was physically able. I did an apprenticeship through agricultural college on a mixed farm. Since then, working on other farms, I’ve used my learnings and earnings to build up my own flock”. Now, Felix farms his own sheep part-time and works on a local mixed arable and store cattle and sheep farm part-time as well.
Felix credits part of his success to the support of local farmers, all situated somewhere between Shipston on Stour and Moreton on the Marsh. “While it’s been financially difficult, I’ve had no end of help from local farmers. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today without their support and knowledge. If I’m ever stuck, they’ll help me out”.
“We’ve got two systems – the commercial Suffolk crosses and a small experimental flock of blue Texel’s. We lamb those a bit earlier, around mid-February. I’ve tried quite a few breeds before I put blue Texel rams on Suffolk’s and found that worked really well. We’ve got a nice lengthy but shapely lamb”, explains Felix.
“Most lambs go direct to slaughter. I try to finish everything, but if we get the odd store lamb, them seem to do really well through the local market. They like the blue Texel crosses”.
“Our land isn’t bad. A lot of it is on the hillside, which is quite hard, so I can keep sheep on it longer. Ewes with twins get hay and sheep lick buckets until they come inside around six weeks before lambing; at which point we introduce some hard feed. All singles stay outside on feed buckets until they lamb”, says Felix.
Utilising Sheep Lick Buckets
Felix experimented with a few different bucket brands before landing on Crystalyx. “I’ve tried most things, but I’ve definitely found that Crystalyx is the best bucket. The sheep hold their condition better and the bucket lasts longer. They’re just better quality to be honest”.
“I use the Crystalyx Extra High Energy sheep lick bucket with the breeding ewes from autumn the period, through tupping time, through the winter, and until after lambing”. With this consistent approach, Felix gains a compact lambing period, an optimal scanning percentage, and fast finishing period; all while swerving twin lamb disease.
“Before we started using Crystalyx, we did suffer a bit with twin lamb disease. With the Suffolks, they do take a lot of looking after. But we see it that if I look after them, they’ll look after us”, adds Felix.
“The winter months these last three years have been wetter and harder on the sheep. But our sheep still did better – that’s when I found that Crystalyx was the best”. We’re sitting at a scanning percentage of just under 200 percent which is perfect for us. We can get them outside and finish them quite early; mid-June to late summer months”.
In the future, Felix has ambitions to up sheep numbers until he is self-sufficient, and then plans to hopefully take on a tenancy farm. With Crystalyx working as well at it is, Felix sees it as a long term approach to supplementing his sheep.
FIND YOUR LOCAL CRYSYALYX STOCKIST or SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST
