The Sheep Geeks – Details, episodes & analysis

Dave Cross is a mixed farmer in Norfolk with sheep, beef, arable and layers. He farms within a family partnership. He has been very strategic with the use of sustainable farming incentive (SFI) to transform their arable fields into lanes of herbal leys. He has been an AHDB monitor farm for the last four years. 

In this podcast we talk about the changes he has made to his farming systems in the last few years and his plans for the future. Nerys asks a question about beef, which is very rare. 

Links

Select tickets – Carbon Calling 2025 – Sleastonhow, Kirkby Thore, Penrith

 SCOPS | Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep

Dr Liz Genever is a farmer, consultant and co-founder of Carbon Calling CIC. 

Dr Nerys Wright is a sheep consultant and technical lead for SCOPS.

Dr Suzanne Rowe is a geneticist at AgResearch in New Zealand, and is passionate about improving profitability and sustainability of global livestock systems using genomic technology. She presented at Sheep Breeders Round Table in November 2024 on breeding for methane reduction in sheep. 

In this podcast she talks about the work that is being done on collecting phenotypes for methane production in the New Zealand, plus work being done in Ireland and the UK. 

Links

Presentation from SBRT - PowerPoint Presentation

Elanco link Are you a farmer wanting to become a star in the sheep world

Bluetongue Virus - Ruminant Health & Welfare 

Dr Liz Genever is a farmer, consultant and co-founder of Carbon Calling CIC. 

Dr Nerys Wright is a sheep consultant and technical lead for SCOPS.

Dr Fiona Lovatt is a vet and consultant, and founder of Flock Health Limited. She has been heavily involved in reducing antibiotic use in the sheep sector. She is passionate about improving the relationship between farmers and their vets. 

In this podcast she talks about a project she did with NoBacz Navel - a non-antibiotic barrier. It was compared against iodine for treating navels in young lambs. They also compared dipping versus spraying, and looked at mortality and growth rates. 

Links

https://www.veterinary-practice.com/2024/new-study-highlights-significant-benefits-of-using-nobacz-navel-in-lambs

https://nobacz.com/

Dr Liz Genever is a farmer, consultant and co-founder of Carbon Calling CIC. 

Dr Nerys Wright is a sheep consultant and technical lead for SCOPS.

Michael Blanche is a sheep and cattle farmer from Perth in Scotland. He is also the genius behind the Pasture Pod podcast.

We talk about how he is trying to build lean management techniques into his daily habits to target his weaker areas - organisation and order!! 

He is passionate about low input systems and he talks us through the areas he focuses on and how he selects functional sheep. 

We also cover covert filming in Travelodges, grazing groups, regenerative ag, anti-farmer agenda, grazing systems and body condition scores. 

Links: 

https://thepasturepod.libsyn.com/ 
 

Katie Evans is a sheep and beef farmer from Norfolk. She was sponsored to attended the Global Sheep Forum's Next Gen programme and has recently returned from a trip to Australia.

We talked through the best bits of the trip and also a bit about her system at home.

Bear with us, we are still warming up to this podcast life. 

Links: 

https://www.globalsheepforum.com/2024nextgencohort
https://nationalsheep.org.uk/ 

Welcome to the launch of the Sheep Geeks podcast with Nerys Wright and Liz Genever. There are both independent sheep consultants, and work with sheep farmers in the UK. Nerys likes talking about parasites and body condition score, and Liz likes talking about grass and forage, and soil. 

This launch podcast introduces Liz and Nerys. In future episodes they will be talking to a range of sheep farmers, consultants, vets and academics. The next one will be available at the end of November.

Links:
sheepconsultancy.co.uk

 lizgenever.com

 https://www.scops.org.uk/

carboncalling.farm/

 https://www.carbon-dating.farm/about.html

David and Cora Cooper are sheep farmers from Ayrshire. They have made significant changes to their system over the last few years to reduce costs and inputs. They are using mob grazing to drive nature recovery on their farm. 

In this podcast we talk about the changes they had made, the focus on low input sheep and their passion for regenerating their land. 

Dr Liz Genever is a farmer, consultant and co-founder of Carbon Calling CIC. 

Dr Nerys Wright is a sheep consultant and technical lead for SCOPS.