Working with animals has always been a passion of mine and I would love to return to farming. I dont come from a farming background but I have always been interested in farming since a very young age. Having been brought up in the middle of Wiltshire, I have grown up from an early age with farming and animals all around me. I spent the 1st 5 years of my employed life working in agriculture and my subsequent time in other industries which has given me a multitude of skills which can be applied to many different roles. From the age of 11 in my breaks and spare time started helping in the agricultural unit at secondary school until the 3rd year when I took agricultural science as one of my 9 GCSEs. I learnt the basics here to be able to go on to agricultural college and study agriculture further. I left school at 16 and went to work on a dairy farm and also attending college 1 day a week and gaining NVQs level 1 and 2 in livestock production over the course of 2 years. 1995-1997 My first employment was as a Farm Hand. This is where I learnt all the core skills at work and at college for looking after and maintaining healthy livestock for example; animal health, how to handle different types of livestock, feeding, calving, calf rearing, milking, stock handling, fencing, hay & silage production, pasture management, building maintenance, basic plumbing, how to drive a tractor, using a front loader, basic tractor maintenance, legislation, record keeping etc. 1998 Farm Hand / Delivery Driver at Becketts fruit farm. I experienced my first taste of management/supervision. My duties included stores work, driving, deliveries and crop maintenance. I was also responsible for managing and supervising the open prison inmates that were employed on the farm. 1998 - 1999 I prefer to work with animals and moved to a local free range egg farm. This gave me new experience working with poultry. My main responsibly was for cleaning out empty sheds and preparing them for the next flock, maintenance and hygiene in the sheds. I also helped out with flock vaccination, flock movement, egg collection and dispatches, driving and other general day to day tasks on the farm. Due to the sale of the business, its location was moved to Wales so again I was about to be made redundant. I applied for a job as assistant herdsman. 1999-2000 As assistant herdsman at this farm I was in part responsible for a larger cattle herd, both dairy (150) & beef (60). The duties were a lot like those of my first job only I was tasked with a lot more responsibility doing the milking 5 days a week. I also had a lot more responsibility for the general health and well being of the cattle. I was able to really work on my stock management skills here, calving and calf rearing, when to dry cows off, feeding, pasture management, keeping the sheds clean and tidy especially through winter, building maintenance, helping out at harvest time, hay & silage production etc. The farm also kept about 10 pigs for fattening and selling to the local butchers. I helped keep them healthy, fed and clean. 2013 to present New Zealand grass based system with 3 units, 2 milking and 1 for young stock and a few beef. I spent 2 years at assistant level relearning all the skills that had become rusty from my time away from the industry. Due to the climates of the industry in 2016 the business decided to expand and build a 3rd milking unit on the young stock farm and put me in as herdsman, we built the new parlour and where all set up and started our first season in spring 2017. As herdsman I have responsibility for the day to day running of the unit including grazing, herd health, mating (not AI trained, but would be keen to learn), foot trimming, record keeping, stock ordering, general farm maintenance, fencing etc. I also help out with the young stock and on the other units when required i.e. TB testing, silage etc. foot trimming training done by Bevan Estman, i also attend 2 discussion groups one with LIC (Piers Badnell) and the other with Andre Van Barneveld.