Andrew McClelland
The Advocate

Maple Star Farm in St. Felix de Kingsey is definitely what you’d call a family farm.

“My brother takes care of the equipment and machinery maintenance; my sister, Trinity, takes care of the social media and sale advertisement of the farm,” explained 20-year-old Ruby Mastine.

“My father does a little bit of everything when it comes to the barns and fields, and my mother helps in the barns for the sheep as much as she can. Everyone has their own role in the business.”

The Mastines come by their dedication to family farming naturally. Ruby is part of the fifth generation to farm the land in St. Felix de Kingsey, just 60 kilometres north of Sherbrooke. What started out long ago as a dairy operation and sugar bush expanded to sheep production with Ruby’s grandparents in the 1960s. Today, parents David Mastine and Erika Brock own and manage the farm, selling lambs for meat all year long and winning multiple awards for their herd and livestock genetics.

For Ruby, sheep rearing has always been a part of growing up.

“One of the first farm memories I have is swinging in a swing that was hung in the barn for us kids while I watch my father feeding the sheep,” Ruby said.

“Seeing all of the ewes running to get their grain while their babies were running and playing up and down the straw bedding. My grandmother, Blanche, always said that if the lambs were playing, that meant they’re healthy. To this day I love seeing them run around, and that quote has always helped me spot when something was wrong.”

Ruby was a member of the Richmond 4-H Club for years, showing sheep, beef, participating in exchanges and even doing some square dancing. After high school graduation, she was uncertain if she wanted to take over the home farm or get a job doing something else in the agricultural sector.  

But she knew that enrolling in Macdonald Campus’ Farm Management and Technology (FMT) program would give her a head start on either path.

“Either way, I knew that the program would help me in the future with either choice,” she said. “I had several family members attend FMT before me, and they showed me the knowledge, friendships and opportunities that they received through it.”

Upon graduating in the spring of 2023, Ruby began working as a feed rep for Moulée Vallée Feeds in Richmond.

“So I ended up doing both,” she said. “Working on the home farm and getting a job elsewhere!”

Maple Star Farm boasts impressive numbers and achievements by any measure: 350 ewes (300 crossbreds and 50 purebred Suffolks) and many of them award-winners. The family won champion Suffolk ewe with a junior ewe lamb at the All Canada Sheep Classic this summer, also racking up three first-place showings in the four categories they entered.

Maple Star also won top terminal breed flock in Canada on the national genetic evaluation program in 2021. In 2022, the family sold the highest-bid Suffolk ram in all of Canada.

Recently, at the new generation’s initiative, the farm has expanded into beef production. In 2017, Ruby and brother Callum decided to purchase two Herefords from their cousins. Seven years later, they’re up to seven cow/calf pairs of purebred Simmentals and Herefords, and the project has made the siblings hopeful about expanding.

“For now, they are an enjoyable hobby,” Ruby said. “However, I would like to one day expand to a larger production of beef to diversify the farm more.”

Through all the hard work and deserved accolades, Ruby Mastine is a confident and determined producer, able to eloquently articulate the challenges of farming for the new generation.

“The weather has always been a farmer’s worst enemy, and it gets worse every single year,” she said.

“With the excessive amount of rain we received last year in Quebec, it made 2023 and 2024 very difficult,” she said. “Expenses have increased immensely since the pandemic, and now they’re doubling over the years due to weather.

“This is a part of farming that the world does not see: it takes a long time to recover after one bad spring/summer, one bad season costs you a lot for the next year. This pushes producers to have to sell sometimes. How are we going to feed the world by 2050 with these weather and economic issues that producers are facing?”

Cutline:

Ruby Mastine of St. Felix de Kingsey in the Eastern Townships has grown up in a successful sheep-producing family. In 2017, she and her brother decided to add Simmentals and Herefords to their family’s fifth-generation farm.

Credit:

Courtesy Ruby Mastine