life
COUNTRYSIDE, WILDLIFE & FARMING
Changing Face
of the
Countryside
Photo: Cahrlotte Legge
As a kid, the idea of an agricultural show, filled my head with images of different
coloured tractors, different coloured cows, different coloured pigs and, sheep,
probably all white, but with different sorts of fluffliness!
By Tony Ridd
The Royal Isle of Wight Agricultural
Show, was created by Queen Victoria, to
promote agriculture and horticulture and
is now, in its, impressive one hundred and
tenth year.
Traditionally the show was geared for
farmers to show off, the best of their
livestock, and competing for various
awards. More recently and mainly through
changes in farming practices, stricter
Government legislation (sound familiar?)
and the amount of people working on the
land, the livestock section has dwindled.
Last year saw a turn around and there is
now more enthusiasm and greater optimism
for this (in my opinion) the most important
section!
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The showing of livestock takes a lot of
preparation, it’s not just a matter of falling
out of bed in the morning, harnessing up
a cow, ewe or sow and trundling off to the
show hoping for the top prize…
To find out just what’s involved, I visited
Matt Legge, County Secretary of the
NFU by day and award winning shepherd
(amongst other things) at all other times…
Matt’s great, he is not only passionate
about his sheep, he is also eager to pass on
his knowledge, in an easy to understand and
comprehendible way.
He puts the transformation of interest
down to an increase in the amount of
people involved with animals. More small
holdings and specialist farming, such as the
conservation of rare and pedigree breeds.
‘The Isle of Wight has some excellent
breeders that show their livestock at many
major shows across England’.
Preparation for the summer and early
autumn shows pretty much starts from the
day the animals are born. The best of the
January born lambs are selected and then
molly coddled, to keep them at their finest.
The plan, is to have the, strongest, best
presented animals for show season. Matt
will select about twelve lambs to ‘bring
on’, and will then pick the best for show
day from these 12. Older ewes and rams
are shorn after the 1st January, with Matt
trimming them three or four times over the
last few weeks run up before the shows.
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