| RESEARCH AND DEMONSTRATION FARMS - AUCHNERRAN FARMING YEAR
The farming year at Auchnerran Max Wright and Elizabeth Ogilvie counting ticks on sheep. © Marlies Nicolai/GWCT
BACKGROUND Auchnerran is a hill-edge farm in east Aberdeenshire, bordering the Cairngorms. The main body of the farm extends to 417ha with another 50ha or so shared with a neighbour. About 70% of the land is grass with some woodland, fodder crops and game cover. The soils are mostly acidic and sandy in nature. The principal commodity on the farm is the sheep flock, which also serves to mop up ticks on the adjacent grouse moor where the sheep graze from around April to November. More information about Auchnerran, including our annual report, can be found at gwct.org.uk/auchnerran.
48 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2020
Auchnerran had a good year. Helped by relatively benign weather, the final lambing figures for 2020 were 129% (see Figure 1), which is our highest yet (see Table 1). We also produced a good silage crop and the best crop of turnips since we started growing them in 2017. The sheep flock now sits at around 1,400 ewes plus followers, after declining in number over the last few years as the unproductive, old ewes were gradually removed to improve overall flock health and productivity. The improvement in the quality of the animals has been evident at market, where we topped the blackface section on each occasion bar one in 2020. We expect to reach our target flock size of around 1,500 ewes in 2021. This is the level that we think is optimal for the available grazing on the farm in winter, which is the main pinch point in the annual cycle, plus the optimal size for tick control on the summer hill-grazing area. This is where our flock performs an important role in reducing tick numbers to reduce burdens on sheep, wildlife and people, thereby reducing the transmission of pathogens like louping ill and Lyme disease. We achieve this by periodically gathering the sheep throughout their time on the hill to treat them with a pour-on acaricide which kills any ticks that attach over the subsequent six to eight weeks. Again, in 2020 the average number of ticks per sheep was less than one. Our battle against rabbits continues with around 1,000 metres of new rabbit netting installed, incorporating 13 rabbit boxes, which to November enabled the removal of 740 rabbits from that section alone. Our monitoring had suggested numbers may have been dropping since control measures began, but it seems the rabbits had a good breeding season like many other species at Auchnerran. 2020 saw the start of a carbon audit on the farm as part of our Integrated Land Management Plan. Using the Scottish Rural College ‘Agrecalc’ tool, this involves
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