For 24 year-old Elle Slade, a sixth generation farmer from Exeter, a career in farming was ‘non-negotiable'. It was, she says, quite obvious from a very young age that farming was her passion.
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But a turning point for Elle was when her dad told her and her brother that if they wanted to come back to the family farm one day, they must bring ‘something else to the party'. He also encouraged them to both find additional work elsewhere off the farm.
Elle says: "It sounds quite brutal, but it was the best thing he said to me and my brother." She did exactly that and has recently started her own calf rearing venture at the family farm, as well as working at a nearby 1,700 head fattening unit.
"My part of bringing something back to the family business was calf rearing. Land in the area, when it does come up for sale, can be extremely expensive – to the point farming would not pay it back. "So it made sense to go into calf rearing, because acreage is very low." Rearing calves is something Elle has done since she was 13, recalling the little portable wooden hutches that would hold about eight calves.
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As a youngster, she would mix her own milk replacer up in churns and ‘lug it up to the calf shed'. Now in her 20s, Elle is at the very start of her new venture. She says rearing calves has always been a job she has found very rewarding, especially when it is going well.
