Jaz Williams – A walk in their Wellies blog

Hi, I’m Jaz, a Contract Shepherdess and Wool Handler from Herefordshire. I currently travel around the UK working on different farms during the busiest times in the farming calendar. From lambing in the spring to shearing in the summer and all those big days through the year gathering, prepping for sales and general flock management…if you have sheep, I don’t take much persuading to lend a hand.

My route into farming has been a little different to most. Although I was born on a dairy farm, the potential for me to get involved with the family business was cut short when we lost the livestock to Foot and Mouth in 2001. I was only 8 years old so I won’t pretend that I understood the gravity of the situation. All I knew was that my little sister and I had grown up in a place where going outside was one big adventure. We’d peek into the parlour to rows of swishing tails at milking time. We’d walk through fields treading the line of the slurry pipe to see who could keep balance the longest and search for voles hiding under the feed troughs. We’d climb trees in the orchard and pick apples for the pigs.

There was so much life on the farm. Then there was silence. It wasn’t until my mid-teens that I started keeping poultry as a bit of a hobby. They gave me routine and responsibility. Being around animals brought me so much motivation and fulfilment, I’d spend every waking hour of my free time outdoors, whatever the weather. Grubby hands and rosy cheeks were my favourite accessories. I loved the practicality that came with it. I taught myself how to build a chicken house and how to put up fencing. I poured my heart and soul into hatching, nurturing and watching my little flock grow. Oh and the joy you feel when they begin to reward you with eggs! Every morning is emotional rollercoaster of elation or deflation when you go to check the coop.

A visit from a fox in the night (or even in broad daylight!) and all the time, the money and the lives, gone as quickly as you can click your fingers. Coming to terms with Mother Nature’s darker side is a hard pill to swallow. The circle of life when you keep animals is something you have to come to terms with. As the saying goes “where there’s livestock, there’s deadstock”. But when you are their custodian, you hope that when the time comes, it is done in a controlled manner that is as swift and stress free as possible, after they have been given the best life you could provide. When it is unexpected and out of your control, it can be the most soul destroying ordeal.

Farming was a passion that kept simmering in the background. At college I kept a couple of pigs, but it was while I was at Uni, looking for something different from pub work in my holidays, that I discovered the unexplainable addiction that is the love/hate relationship of working with sheep. How can you be addicted to working with an animal that seems endlessly determined to find a new and unexpected ways to die on a regular, if not daily basis? I think it helps to be stubborn. Stubborn, passionate and of course have a good sense of humour.

Just a few months after finishing Uni, I decided with conviction that working with livestock is where I find myself truly content. Whether it’s in a cosy lambing shed or out on the hills being blasted by the elements and soaked to the skin, there is always a moment in each day I am working on a farm where I think, “there is genuinely nowhere else I’d rather be right now”. That is a feeling you just can’t ignore, even when you have just spent 3 years studying something else entirely. So I found myself a part-time job on a farm with sheep and cattle. I worked for my bed and board, I threw myself in the deep end and I never looked back.

I’ve pretty much been doing the same ever since. Just throwing myself into the deep end when an opportunity comes my way. As I am in a position where I don’t have a family farm to inherit, or anywhere I am rooted, I have had the advantage of being able to travel both around the UK and abroad. It’s a great way to learn, broaden your interests and even take what you’ve learnt in one place and introduce it to another.

Every other winter since 2019 I have spent wool handling abroad. This year I am in Australia. I flew out here in the autumn when the shearing season at home was finished and I will return to the UK at the beginning of March for the lambing season. In the three and a half months I have been here so far, the highlight of my trip still remains to be when I went to spend the day helping out on a 12,000 breeding ewe sheep farm. They had 5,000 lambs to gather and sort through that day. It is one of the most surreal experiences of my life, watching a sea of thousands of lambs following you as you sit in the back of a Ute bouncing across dry dusty fields.

Although we are worlds apart when it comes to the scale of farming in the UK, it has been interesting to learn that much like us, Australian farmers have struggled over the past few years with the impact of dramatic unseasonal weather and fluctuating market prices. Like us, diversification seems to be becoming key to survival. However, unlike the UK, there does seem to be a better connection between farmer and consumer. TV adverts for one, show food production to be something that brings the country together (if you haven’t seen it already, Google “The Generation Gap” 2024 Lamb ad for Aus. It’s brilliant! Why aren’t we doing this?!)
We are a society of consumption, in position where we can pretty much have anything we want whenever we want. When it comes to food we have lost touch with where it comes from, how it is produced and when it is actually in season. As a consequence we have no idea of its actual financial value and this is one of the biggest threats facing the industry at the moment.

It is indisputable that supermarkets have a lot to answer for. It has become a minefield in the supermarkets to know whether what you are paying for ends up in the pocket of your local British farmer or supports an industry overseas with lower welfare standards and a higher
carbon footprint. However, it is our responsibility as consumers to take the initiative to educate ourselves as best we can to make decisions that will support the industry. After all food is our foundation. It is quite literally essential for our existence and yet we have forgotten how to give it the value it deserves. Both financially and for our own bodies and mental well-being.

Social media has become a great place for people to see what goes into British food production day to day. There are now farmers out there who go out of their way to document on a daily basis everything they do to put food on our plates. The community within the industry is just incredible and although there can be a lot of negativity around social media, it has become a place where we are all eachothers cheerleaders and you can share knowledge, experience and even your disasters with likeminded people who receive them with kindness, support and understanding. I try to use my own social media (@shepherdessjaz) and blog (shepherdessjaz.com) to show people a slightly different route into agriculture. You don’t have to inherit a farm or have studied agriculture and it’s never too late to discover and pursue what you are truly passionate about.

For anyone interested in the agricultural industry, my advice would be that the best way to learn is to get stuck in with on farm experience. Be prepared to take and embrace that “bottom of the ladder” job. You can’t start at your end goal. Every job builds on your knowledge and experience. Take as much as you can from every opportunity. Look to work your way up. If you are a hard worker, it will not go unnoticed.

I read somewhere recently that ‘success is not measured by money. It’s doing something you truly enjoy’. Apt for an industry where every day can feel like a gamble, but can also be so rewarding. Every chance it gets, farming will humble you. To work so closely with Mother Nature in all her glory, from the life you nurture to the lessons you learn, is an immense privilege that I hope more people will discover.