Expanding rural skills key for young Welsh farmer

Chris Davies is pursuing his passion for traditional rural crafts while working alongside his parents on the family farm. Gaina Morgan finds out more.

For Chris Davies, activities off-farm are just as important as those on it and his showing skills and flair for rural crafts have delivered many surprising opportunities.

A fourth-generation hedge layer, he has, quite literally, chatted over a hedge with Prince Charles at Highgrove. The same event, where he won the Welsh Open Class, was also the backdrop for his appearance on The One Show. Chris is just 24, but his hedgelaying skills have been passed down through the generations at Caebetran Farm, Brecon, where he farms with parents, Gwyn and Hazel. The National Hedgelaying Societys Patrons Day event, hosted by patron Prince Charles at his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire, was almost a family affair.

His dad, Gwyn, was helping the younger competitors Prince Charles had been keen to involve. His aunt, Rita Jones, came second in the same class as Chris, the Breconshire Stake and Pleach. And it was certainly a day to remember, says Chris.

Prince Charles was very interested and very knowledgeable. Were so lucky to have him as patron of the society, he says.

It was my first time to compete at the Patrons Day, an annual event at Highgrove. I was really excited and quite nervous but it gave me great pleasure to turn out a hedge and to compete.

Prince Charles presented me with the certificate. It was really enjoyable to meet him and talk with him about all that goes with hedgelaying. Hes very interesting.

Chris explained that with nine metres of hedge to lay between 9am and 2pm, he simply got on with the job. It had been great to be a part of a royal event, but he had been concentrating on the criteria by which he would be judged: the staking and carefully cutting pleachers to maintain life throughout the hedge.

He says: Every hedge is different, most are planted, but you can see a single row or a staggered row. There are several different ways they can be planted and sometimes in local matches you can have hedges that havent been laid for 40 years.

You have a mixture and each one is different as to how you open it up and actually start it. There was plenty of material to work with in the Highgrove hedges and life all through it.

Hedgelaying is an important part of Chris working life and he is very much in demand, completing an average of 20m a day, depending on the hedge. He only began training in earnest once he had his chainsaw licence at the age of 18.

But his other passion is sheep trimming which provides an income in summer. He credits his local Young Farmers Club (YFC) at Llandefalle for encouraging and mentoring him as he scaled the competition ladder in a variety of skills. Chris has won the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show (RWAS) Winter Fair twice, representing Breconshire YFC lamb trimming.

Last November, his pair of Blue Texels won their class and went on to win reserve in the Pure Continental Breed Section at the 2021 RWAS Winter Fair. They came from his prize-winning flock, Beaconsview Blue Texels, founded to facilitate the trimming. Successfully showing the sheep is an important aspect of marketing and has been sorely missed during Covid-19. The many rosettes in their home are testament to their success in the showring, as well as hedgelaying.

Chris began his Beaconsview Blue Texel flock because the dense fleece lends itself to trimming, which is not allowed in the Texel breed. He has developed a 30-strong flock from the initial four ewes he bought eight years ago. They sell in society sales in Worcester, the National Sheep Association (NSA) Wales & Border main sale at the Royal Welsh Showground in Carlisle and at the coloured sale in Llandovery. Chris says they are easy lambing, flesh up well and respond well to concentrates. They are also lovely mothers, quiet and friendly, with great characters.

He says: Theyve got lovely markings and colours and are a very attractive breed. So, it was good to start with them and my interest in them just grew.

Then you meet people along the way in the breed and you make friends for life on the pedigree circuit.

The family farm runs to 57 hectares (140 acres), rising to 1,000 feet above sea level. Good grassland is key, so it is regularly tested for lime, phosphate and potash, with about 4ha (10 acres) ploughed and reseeded each year. Around 25 pedigree Texel rams are sold from home a year, again at the southwest Wales Texel club sale in Llandovery and at the NSA Wales and Border Ram Sales.

There are also 30 Limousin cross Belgian Blue suckler cows, with the calves sold at 10-12 months in the Brecon Store Cattle Sales. They also run a flock of 250 Texel cross commercial ewes, lambs are sold into the Waitrose scheme at 40-44kg. The lambing season is busy, with the pedigree ewes housed at the start of February. The Blue Texels lamb first, followed by the Texels. They are fed haylage, with access to mineral blocks and those carrying twins given concentrates. CCTV also means there is 24/7 care.

They are turned out four or five days after lambing, depending on the weather. Lambs are fed on creep, with the best ram lambs sold as tups, the very best ewe lambs kept as replacements and the others finished for the lamb trade.

The commercial ewes follow a similar pattern, with the ewes coming in ready for lambing from March 20. Lambs are reared on a grass system and sold off grass, between July and December, although later finishing lambs are fed some concentrates. Pedigree rams are bred for the commercial buyer. It makes life simpler, because they do not have the added costs of embryo transfer to aim for elite breeding. Their rams are ideal for crossing, fed on grass with just a little concentrate and ready to work.

Chris is confident of his future, despite the many pressures on the industry. He keeps an eye on the political scene, the trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, and the environmental lobby. He is braced for change.

Weve just got to keep doing what we know. We dont really know the future for certain. Its going more along the environmental lines and we have just got to move along with it, he says.

Weve got a good story to tell. Our stock is grass fed and were trying to make the best of the natural resources we have, in terms of the hedges and grassland. You just want the business to pay for itself and anything else that comes in is a bonus.

Breathtaking views, from the Black Mountain in the west, over the Brecon Beacons and Wales second highest peak, Pen y Fan, form the backdrop to the familys faming life. It is well suited to their other income stream self-catering holiday units, run by mum, Hazel.

Many of the visitors return regularly, simply to relax, to step into farming life for a while and pick up on the latest developments. It is yet another opportunity for the family to share their farming story and explain the links between food, farming and their role as custodians of the environment.

And these days there is, of course, a royal anecdote or two to tell too.