Kelvin and Liz Fletcher sold their bull Ezra for £1,180 on the latest episode of ITV's Fletcher's Family Farm, with Liz admitting she had not had time to process the farewell before the auction.
Kelvin had hoped the sale would bring in more than £1,000 to help build their herd, and the final price exceeded his expectations. After the sale, he said: "It's great, very happy. I think that's tremendous."
Why the couple decided to sell Ezra
Before heading to auction, Kelvin explained the reasoning behind the decision. "We're selling Ezra, which means another farmer can take him on as a breeding bull or finish him in a few months' time," he said.
He added: "Prices for livestock in general are exceptionally strong at the minute. The strongest I've ever known in the five years that we've been farming. So for a store cow like him, you know, I'd like to think he'd be fetching over a thousand pounds. That money we get today will just hopefully go towards building our herd."
Kelvin admitted he felt "nervous" at the auction. For Liz, the busy pace of farm life meant the goodbye arrived before she had fully taken it in. She told the camera: "I've not really had much time to process it because although I knew it was coming, you're just sometimes so busy getting on with life that now we're here and I feel like I've not said my goodbyes, but hopefully we'll do well."
Maize maze gamble sparks disagreement
Elsewhere in the episode, the couple took a gamble on a new attraction, cutting a maze into their four-acre maize field rather than keeping the whole crop to sell. Kelvin explained: "Cutting maize that we could sell for a profit is a risk, but an event could give us a much bigger return. So we're rolling the dice and creating our very first Fletcher maize maze."
Putting the design into practice sparked a disagreement. Kelvin questioned Liz's approach, telling her: "You look like you just make it up as you go along."
"I'm not. I'm looking at the map," she replied. Kelvin pressed the point: "You're making it up as you go along, aren't you? Seriously, this is important. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but there is a lot at stake here, and I just want to make sure we're getting it right."
Escaped sheep and the finished maze
Liz later delivered her own verdict to the camera: "My biggest problem is Kelvin. He's always my biggest problem." As he mowed the paths, Kelvin also struggled with cutting down a crop they had worked hard to establish. "You're just butchering it, you're ruining it, and it just doesn't sit well with me," he admitted.
The work was interrupted by escaped sheep, which needed rounding up before the couple could add the maze's final swirls. Once the flock was back where it belonged, Kelvin and Liz finished the maze and were delighted with the result.
Fletcher's Family Farm airs on Sunday at 11.30am on ITV.
