Farmer Luxton

Hello again everyone. I hope things are well with you. Christmas and New Year are long gone. I hope you don’t want cheering up, because as I’m writing this, I’ve definitely had a case of New Year blues. I’ve had a very bad few days.

Firstly, I was on the road at the end of the farm lane, a van was going too fast for the icy conditions couldn’t stop and it looks as if my car has been written off.

Three days later, and far worse, we had the results of our bovine TB test. 32 of our lovely animals have failed and will have to be destroyed. Included in these is our senior bull, Duncenziemere Sportsman, and four of our best cows which have been heavily in calf to one of the best bulls available, Kilmalug Eriskay. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.

We work so hard to move the herd forward and then something out of our control takes it all away. The photo is of me with some of the failed animals in the background, the only plus point is that they have no idea of their fate.

We needed one new bull and with Sportsman having to be destroyed we now needed two. Yesterday morning I left home at 5am and arrived at a farm on the outskirts of Guilford by just after 8am. By 10 am I was on the way back to Devon having purchased Black Panther and Bright Man. All I need to hope now is that the ministry of agriculture will grant me a license to let me move the animals on to our farm.

That was Friday then on Monday we scanned our ewes. My new three posh Texel ewes were all empty. It appears as if the tried and tested ram I purchased to replace the infertile one wasn’t as reliable as I thought. Who would be a farmer???

The shop has been a bit up and down this month too. Customer numbers up, staffing numbers down! We have been working very hard on improving service times and customer experience in the café. The success of this can be seen directly in the enlarged footfall.

As with all businesses currently, retaining and recruiting staff is a challenge. Things are hard at the moment for our loyal staff but behind the scenes there has been much work finding new teammates that fit in with our fantastic group.

There is some exciting news, very recently we have secured the services of a fantastic head chef and a number of additional excellent new staff who we hope will take up to a whole new level. By the time you read this they should all be in place. Why not come pay us a visit and see what you think. We are already planning a small number of evening events in the spring, when hopefully the temperature will have warmed up - and it might be cycling weather again!

Stuart Luxton

We are an independent practice. We strive to give excellent care for your animals and yourselves. Our practice covers all species, which gives the strength of multi-discipline knowledge and invidual expertise within the team.