Viva Lewes Issue #143 August 2018

Gary Baldock
Grazing officer
I’m the grazing officer for the Sussex Wildlife
Trust. Along with my colleague Andy Scudder
(left in pic) I look after the livestock that graze 14
of the reserves owned or managed by the Trust,
two of which are in Lewes – Southerham Farm
and Malling Down.
Usually when you keep livestock, the land is
there for their benefit. But in our case – though
their wellbeing is of great importance to us – it’s
the other way round. The animals are there to
benefit the land: if they didn’t graze it, it would be
overrun with gorse, brambles, ash and hawthorn.
The 14 sites are spread across both West Sussex
and East Sussex, from Chichester to Rye.
In total we have about 500 sheep, 120 cattle and
13 ponies. It’s our job to move them from site to
site, wherever they’re needed, as well as to collect
them if they escape, or get them treated if they’re
injured. We spend a lot of time in the car! We’re
based at Southerham Farm, just outside Lewes,
but we don’t spend much time in the office.
The cattle are British White, Sussex and
Longhorn; the sheep are Herdwick, Hebridean
and Shetland. These hardy breeds are chosen because
they browse the scrub rather than graze the
grass. Because they’re not for the food market,
they don’t need to fatten up quickly.
The ponies are Koniks and Exmoors. They are
much more difficult to deal with than the other
animals, because they’re smarter! It’s easy to get
a cow in a pen: you just put their food in there. A
pony thinks: “if I go in there, you’re only going
to shut the gate, mate.” One went lame earlier
this year, and it took me two weeks before I could
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