Blue Texels

Historically, commercial sheep and a flock of Kerry Hill sheep have been run on the farm, but in 2010 it was decided to reduce the size of the commercial flock and disperse the Kerry Hills and establish a flock of pedigree Blue Texel sheep run under the same Williams prefix.

Having been taken with them at shows for their low maintenance, easy lambing and stylish characteristics, the first females were bought at Andy Bishop’s dispersal in 2010 as well as one privately from the Ivanhoe flock. They were later joined by six females from David Alexander’s Millside production sale in 2011.

Past flock sires have included tups from Midnight and are now recently joined by Pistyll Fagan and Auchmantle Fireman Sam.

The flock is MV accredited and vaccinated for both toxoplasmosis and enzootic abortions and is Heptavac P+. Enquiries are welcome regarding tup sales.

Royal Norfolk '18 breed champion

East of England Show '12 breed champion

Stock tup from the Duns flock by a Millside ram out of a Greenwen ewe

Ewe by a Craigalbert ram out of a Millside ewe

Millside ewe by a Jonsland ram out of a Millside ewe

Dutch Spotted Sheep

A flock of Dutch Spotted Sheep were established to run alongside the Blue Texel flock with a view to offering a different type of sheep to our commercial customers, which have proved so popular that the flock has increased two-fold.

We have found this breed to be long and lean and take similar management to the Blue Texels.

The decision to increase the flock was an easy one due to the high levels of popularity within commercial customers. To do this we have retained a lot of homebred daughters as well as importing some new exciting bloodlines.

We also made the careful decision to flush our foundation ewe from Ali Jackson as well as one of our own homebred ewes. We will only ever flush lines on which we have full confidence rather than take a gamble.

We have added two exciting new tups from Alan Smyth: Eden Eddie and Eden Endra which have the length, style and backend to combine well with our ewes.

With the Dutch Spotted famed for flesh from grass and still typically finishing as E-grades, they continue to be an ever-popular breed. We are selling tups into commercial flocks on 500 ewes with the kill sheets showing real results.

Demand continues to grow for the Dutch Spotted’s across the UK and in Northern Ireland and we’ve had some great pedigree sales, as well as many commercial sales off farm for tups.

Our success stories to date have included Williams Bertie selling for 1500gns, having stood second in the pre-sale show in Carlisle in 2019. This son of Tiptop Aero out of an imported dam, sold away to Messrs Woof and Sons, Cumbria.

The following year in Carlisle saw a call of 2700gns for Williams Delilah who found her new home with the Damson flock of Megan Rowlandson. This daughter of Tiptop Aero is out of Ali Jackson’s top show ewe Hannah and was a stand-out for us from the beginning.

Close on her tail was Williams Delight selling at 2600gns. Another daughter of Tiptop Aero she found her new home with the Threave View flock of Robert Barber-Fleming.

More recently at the 2021 Carlisle sale we were delighted to see the first son of Damson Dakota, Williams Errol, sell away at 1200gns.

We’ve added two young tups to our stock sire line up in the form of Eden Eddie and Eden Ezra.