This Farming Life

As the new year begins, we meet three new farming families – father-and-son team Raymond and Johnny Irvine, Shetland sisters Kirsty and Aimee Budge and the Rodgers family in Co Down, Northern Ireland - and buffalo farmer Stevie Mitchell returns.

New entrant crofting couple Lynn and Sandra send their first pigs to slaughter. Raymond’s best bull Major is injured in a brawl. The Rodgers hopes of Balmoral show hang on a clear TB test and buffalo farmer Stevie goes shopping in Holland.

Inspectors arrive to check Raymond and Johnny’s subsidy claim. Kirsty and Aimee gather the flock in from St Ninian’s Isle. Lynn and Sandra host their first workshop at the croft. The Beast from the East wreaks havoc on Stevie’s buffalo farm.

A new family, dairy farmers the McLeans, are introduced. Raymond goes the extra mile to save his lambs. Stevie faces buffalo cow number 666, and Kirsty and Aimee take last year’s calves to market.

The Rodgers face a final TB test. Animals arrive at Lynn and Sandra’s croft. Raymond is kept guessing by his surrogate sheep and a calving boom starts at Kirsty and Aimee’s farm.

In Shetland, Kirsty tackles her first breach birth. Stevie’s favourite pygmy goat Ginger struggles to give birth to twins. Raymond’s cows run amok on their way to the fields and the Rodgers take young heifer Nadia to the Balmoral Show.

Raymond tests the market for his cross-bred valais blacknose sheep. Lynn and Sandra go to their first ever auction to buy sheep and hens for the croft.

Lynn and Sandra face the danger of a drought on the croft. Stevie’s buffalo herd go for a cooling dip in the loch. And at the Royal Highland Show, Raymond and Johnny aim high with their Charolais, while Aimee puts her pony skills to the test.

Lynn and Sandra harvest their first honey. The Rodgers give bull Mario a send-off. Raymond’s flock is under threat from flystrike, and 50 of Stevie’s buffalo escape.

Raymond and a team of volunteers give the valais blacknose sheep a bath. Kirsty and Tom rescue fallen sheep on the isle. Stevie attempts to milk his first buffalo.

It is autumn and in the Highlands, Raymond’s bull Major, who was injured earlier in the year, finally goes to work but getting him to the field of cows involves a soggy detour. Raymond and fiancee Jen take a busman’s holiday to Switzerland to help their friends gather their valais blacknose sheep from the mountaintops but their holiday turns into an Alpine adventure. In Shetland, Kirsty and Aimee go on a bumper sheep shopping trip to double their flock. Dairy farmers and pedigree breeders the McLeans host the Holstein Society of Northern Ireland’s Herds competition and some bad news forces buffalo farmer Stevie to make a shocking decision.

In the Highlands, new crofters Lynn and Sandra welcome more new sheep and take delivery of a batch of hens that they hope will lay the foundations of an egg empire. In Northern Ireland, the Rodgers family host a barbecue for the local Young Farmers Club, but it is no ordinary flame-grilled affair! In the Cairngorms, Raymond and Johnny gather the flock to wean this year’s lambs and weed out any ewes that aren’t fit enough to breed again on their rough land. In Shetland, Kirsty, Aimee and the extended Budge family all pull together to bring in the barley.