Farming 300 head of beef and 100 of sheep, Katie James is both farm worker and administrator and has been using Livestock Information Service (LIS) online to report sheep movements since the initial change over from ARAMS. At first Katie had a few difficulties setting up a new account, but the LIS Support Team helped sort everything out. She now uses LIS to report the movement of around 80 sheep a month on or off the farm.

A small farm of only 45 acres, Monk Hall Farm is run by first generation husband and wife team Magnus and Helen Hird. Situated just outside Burnley, Lancashire, the Hirds farm Hebridean sheep, selling gimmer lambs and shearlings for breeding stock and running on the tups for hogget meat boxes. They are currently wintering 43 sheep alongside their 10 Anglo-Nubian goats and small herd of Dexter cattle. Magnus and Helen manage the farm around their full-time healthcare roles and say of their small holding.
Magnus first heard about the new Livestock Information Service (LIS) when it was in its development phase and got involved in testing with the programme team early on. Although they only make about half a dozen movements a year, they have used LIS online since it went live in March 2022.
Magnus shares his thoughts on LIS: “From what I can recall it was straightforward to set up. I’m comfortable with IT in general though so navigating websites/pages/forms etc isn’t an issue. Using it was just a matter of trying out the menu items, getting used to where the different bits are, as it is laid out differently to ARAMS, but it feels easier to use.

High West House Farm, situated in the small town of Tow Law, Bishop Auckland, is where you will find Joanne Robson working on her parents’ farm one day a week (weekends, holidays, and lambing!). Despite a busy full-time job managing the microscopy facility at Durham University, Joanne helps out whenever she can, not only with the physical aspects of the farm, but with the farm paperwork, ‘and lots of it’ she tells us. The farm has about 500 breeding sheep plus lambs and would normally do 1-2 movements a month using LIS for sheep, goat and deer online.