Abbey Farm
JM Davies and Sons, Abbey Farm, Llangollen, Denbighshire, LL20 8DD
Abbey Farm became a demonstration farm in October 2010.
Farm Facts
Labour
The Abbey farm partnership consists of the Davies family. The three Davies brothers all work on the farm full time with Jonathan Davies working seasonally as a local shearing contractor, Billy as a fencing contractor and Arran travelling as a contract shearer. Bethan Roberts, Jon's partner provides the administrative support for the farm.
Land
Currently 500acres owned at Abbey farm and Dinbren, located close to Llangollen, which is mostly permanent grassland and mountain grazing. The farm is also home to the Valle Crucis Abbey. This farm was historically three units but is now run as one. In addition to the main farm, there is also 420 acres of rented land some of which is as far as 17miles away. The majority of this rental land is on short term let, with some summer grazing.
Cattle numbers
Suckler cows - 70
Pedigree Lim sucklers - 20
Store cattle - 70
Finished cattle - 15
Heifers to bull - 18
Sheep
The sheep are mostly crossbred, currently with 260 mules, 300 Lleyn x welsh and 80 older crossbred ewes which lamb before the main flock. The family aim to keep 1500 ewes with breed distribution around 500 mules, 400 Lleyn x welsh mountain, with the remaining 600 being welsh mountain, some of which are older ewes. In addition to this there are 130 Speckle ewes. Scanning percentage averages around 180% in the Mule ewes and 130% in the Welsh Mountain ewes, with ewes lambing between mid February and late April both indoor and outdoor. Lambs are marketed through the local livemarkets with small numbers going through the family farm shop. They aim to finish all lambs by March the following year, just keeping a few remaining stores beyond this date. Lamb target weight at marketing is 40kg, with the welsh mountains achieving a minimum of 31.5kg.
Grassland
Land closest is used for silage with 135 acres going into pit silage and 40 acres used for hay and silage bales. Where possible rotational grazing is used and mixed grazing is planned. A minimum of 10-15 acres are reseeded annually, however they aim to increase this acreage each year.
Land at Whittington is used for grazing and 43 acres of arable to grow their own feed for the cattle. In addition, at Abbey farm there are 15 acres of turnips used as sheep feed, and 30 acres of corn, which helps qualify the farm for Tir Gofal.
Other enterprises
The family also run an established farm shop and holiday accommodation enterprises (cottages & camping). These are separate to the main farm enterprise, and are run by Jon's father. The farm shop has been using the farm to supply up to a peak of 300 lambs and 24 cattle.
Aims
Improve business stability and profitability. This in turn will help the business prove it's worth to the bank in terms of expansion proposals, especially as it a young business.
Objectives
Use an animal health plan to identify methods of disease prevention
Tighten calving period to allow two periods of block calving
Be self sufficient for livestock feed and energy usage
Increase sheep flock to 1500 ewes
Increase cattle numbers to 130
Improve grassland leys
Finish more cattle as bull beef at 14 months
Streamline use of cattle breeds to Saler x Welsh black and a small herd of pedigree Limo's
