LIMO study tour 2006
Final year Higher National Diploma in Agriculture students, who have chosen to study the LIMO project had the opportunity to visit some of the top beef farms in the U.K. thanks to sponsorship from the British Limousin Cattle Society.
During their mid-semester autumn break students travelled to Southern Scotland and Northern England. After an early start our first visit was to Cream of Galloway, an organic beef, sheep and dairy farm, retailing home produced Beef and lamb as well as processing milk into ice cream. The business has further diversified into an activity play area for children and tea rooms and last year they recorded 60,000 visitors.
We then headed north to Kelso and the farm of Robert Neill who is tenant farming 480 Ha, 200 of which is cropped, the remainder supporting 300 Limousin cross suckler cows. Robert markets all his stock live aiming at the butcher trade where he achieved an average price of over £800 in 2005 for heifers and steers. He takes biosecurity seriously breeding his own replacements, transferring others from his brother’s dairy farm and only purchasing bulls form SAC accredited health status farms. Later that evening Robert’s vet discussed the importance of fertility assessment of breeding bulls and how they should be managed to achieve their full potential.
Day two started with a visit to the renowned Homebyres herd of John Logan. His herd consists of 85 purebred Limousin cows with a further 20 crossbred cows mainly used as recipients for his embryo transfer programme. Mr Logan again stresses the benefits of maintaining a high health status herd and the use of EBV’s in selecting bulls for use on his herd.
We then headed south to visit Mike Scott, the winner of the BLCS Crossbred herd competition 2005. With 400 predominately Limousin cross cows and 1200 breeding ewes Mike farms 640 ha situated 20 miles east of Carlisle. He crosses the cows back to Limousin bulls using both artificial insemination and natural service. Mike markets all his stock live at St Boswells Mart selling store cattle at 14 months of age achieving a premium price with many destined for showing achieving in excess of £1500. Later that evening we joined the North West club at their annual dinner dance and had an opportunity to mix with many well known breeders.
Our final day started early with a visit to the Norman Herd of Eric Norman at Little Orton just outside Carlisle. The herd won the North West areas large herd competition and is still rebuilding after foot and mouth. Eric’s son Craig gave us the full tour and explained his role at the president of the Limousin young breeders club. His herd of 85 Pedigree cows is maturing well and will surely produce some excellent breeding stock in the near future.
Our final visit was to the Borderway Mart, Carlisle for the Red Ladies day show and sale of pedigree Limousin females. With some excellent stock on show we were able to see progeny from bulls we will be considering for use on the herd back at Greenmount. The top price recorded on the day was for the reserve champion, the April 2005 born Ballinloan Alexis, a Nenuphar daughter brought forward by Stuart Fotheringham, Perthshire.
The LIMO students and staff would again like to thank BLCS for their sponsorship without which this valuable educational experience could not have been possible.
Mike Scott outlining his farming activities to the LIMO students.
Robert Neil discussing the management of his 300 crossbred cows near Kelso.