Farm of the Week: Challenging times for The Yorkshire Vet's TV farmer Chris Jeffery as his wife is battling cancer and he has had to sell livestock

Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer in June after discovering a lump in her breast. The cancer has spread to her bones and she is currently undergoing intensive chemotherapy.

“We are trying to find as many positives out of what is happening,” said Chris. “It is just awful for poor Kate. I wish I could take this off her and really do wish it was me. It’s just awful seeing my wife feeling so poorly.

“We were told by the oncologist that Kate has something which is called triple negative that only affects 15 per cent of women. It is very aggressive and doesn’t respond to treatment as well as others.

“We know we’re not on our own and want to say that there are many others with this awful disease and we are determined to raise awareness of breast cancer and encourage everyone to get checked out. We have arranged a special event in two weeks from now.

Chris has had to offload some of the farm’s livestock so he can look after Kate and also manage their farm supply shop business Green’s at Thirsk livestock market, which they have run together for the past 18 years.

“It has been a double whammy these past six months because we had been all-set to sell Green’s to a major agricultural company and had been looking forward to putting all our energies into our little farm. They pulled out at the last minute two months ago.

“We had always run Green’s as a couple and I’m now having to shoulder everything with a lot of help from our team especially now as these next five weeks are always the busiest of our year.

“The saddest farming decision I’ve had to make was parting with my Oxford Sandy & Blacks. It was only in June when we held our first Open Farm weekend that everyone who visited was loving them. I love pigs too, but they take more work every day than any other livestock. I don’t mind the work at all, but I thought realistically the only thing to do presently was to let them go.

Chris, a farmer’s son from Wigginton, had finally realised his ambition of having his own farm seven years ago when he and Kate purchased Spring View Farm as a result of their efforts with Green’s. Chris is proud of what he and Kate have achieved.

“We farm 40 acres of grassland and have the largest herd of high-health recorded Whitebred Shorthorns in England with 20 breeding cows. We’ve won breed championships. We sell young heifers and young bulls privately or at Carlisle with our best heifers coming into the herd as replacements.

“I’ve recently bought a Beef Shorthorn bull, Gilven Rohan, from top local breeder Steve Johnson. I’d taken a long hard look at what we were doing, because it is all well and good having the largest Whitebred Shorthorn herd but the problem is that there is a limited market, certainly for the bulls, and prices recently haven’t been good enough.

“We’ve invested a lot of effort into the Whitebreds and when selling I have to command a premium, but at the moment the market doesn’t seem to be there.

“I made the decision to buy from Steve and Gilven Rohan will join us in the new year and will be put to 15 of the Whitebreds. We will put the top five Whitebred Shorthorn cows to AI from a Whitebred bull as we know that we can sell two or three pedigree bulls a year and heifers anytime, and importantly there is a Morrisons scheme for Beef Shorthorns that pays a premium which Thirsk run an autumn sale for every year.

Chris currently has sheep and cattle at Spring View. After switching breeds to Border Leicesters last year he has since added Lleyns.

“We now have 15 Border Leicester ewes and 35 Lleyns. It’s a nice little flock and we try to synchronise for early lambing so that we have 20 lambing together in February with the rest in April. It’s a way of spreading out lambing, as I will be on my own doing it this year and still have the shop to run.

“This year we put CIDRs into 20 ewes, all of the Border Leicesters and five of the Lleyns. We put two tups in and all were tupped in two days, but unfortunately only 11 held to that first tupping. They will lamb around 7 February with the others lambing 17 days later as we were successful second time around with those that hadn’t held.

“Our tups are both Border Leicesters and I’m very excited about what the Lleyn ewes are going to produce as they are known for their carcase. The idea is that all the pedigree Border Leicesters will go as breeding stock for other pedigree breeders and hopefully we will sell some great breeding tups with the Lleyns going for meat.

Chris said his cattle and sheep, as well as taking less time than the pigs, are also a comfort to him when contemplating life’s latest turn.

“They are all still out and the sheep will stay out. As for the cattle, that all depends on the weather. We are fortunate that we have a hill behind the farm and an adjoining open shed where the cattle can come in or can go up on the hill. I also have some bulling heifers, that are hopefully pregnant by now, that are currently still outside at Newburgh Priory.

“When you’re farming stock you need to be able to go out into the field every day and look at them and smile, and there’s nothing I love more.

“Kate’s the same. She’s a farmer’s daughter. She was looking out of the bedroom window as I moved the sheep last week as she’s currently very weak from the chemo. She cried when I came in and said, ‘I’m hurting so much and I want to help but I can’t.’

“We know that Kate’s treatment is costing thousands and we wanted to do something to give something back and raise awareness. We’ve had great support from family, friends, our team at Green’s and everyone at the Magnolia Centre in York Hospital.

“We have organised a charity Christmas evening at Green’s on the evening of Thursday 8 December to raise funds for York Against Cancer when 10 per cent of all the night’s takings will go to the charity and the highlight will be three local farming authors, including me, signing their books.

You can also purchase Chris’ book Big Tales From My Little Farm direct by visiting www.springviewfarms.co.uk