A number of MED members recently visited four Scottish farms as part of the Cafre Study Tour 2012.
Arriving in Scotlandon Tuesday 26th June, the group’s first stop was the farm of Andrew Nelson. Andrew, who farms outside Castle Douglas runs 130 cows, mainly Aberdeen Angus cross Friesian and ¾ Angus cross Montbeliarde. Breeding his own replacements, and selling his stores at one year old, he also runs a flock of 500 cheviot mule ewes with Texel rams and all lambs are sold off grass. Andrew won the British Grassland Societies National Grassland Management competition in 2011 and this is very evident in his grassland management on the farm.
On Wednesday morning the group’s first stop was at the farm of Doug and Lorna Greenshields. The husband and wife team farms 1700 acres of what Doug terms as mostly hill land. He runs 190 Stabiliser or Stabiliser cross cows and keeps all progeny until two year old along with 600 blackfaced and 700 mule ewes and finishes all lambs. He has turned most of his farm into a very intensive paddock system and is very conscious of kilo per hectare.
After lunch with Doug and Lorna the group went to the farm of Andrew Hamilton outsideDumfries. A tenant farmer, Andrew farms 570 acres of what the group felt was the best quality land visited on the tour; he runs 180 cows, mainlyAngus,Limousincross with Charolias as the main sire. He also runs 700 ewes and finishes all lambs off grass. Contrary to the previous farm visited he does not use a paddock system and his aim is to keep labour requirement to a minimum and to date sells all his weanlings at home. In addition to his farming enterprise he works hand in hand with the various environmental/conservation agencies and game reserve to the extent that he grows buffer strips of grains for wildlife use.
On Thursday morning before returning home, the group visited the farm of Sam Carlisle. Sam, originally a beef farmer from Temple Patrick, Co Antrim moved to Scotland in 2002 to continue and expand his beef enterprise, he purchased 550 acres of flat land outside Dumfries, a large proportion of which has a sand base. He initially ran 400 cows plus beef cattle but has now reduced to 150 cows which are all outwintered and all progeny are finished through his beef finishing unit. His throughput of beef per week is 40 cattle approx to various outlets including supermarkets butchers, factories etc. The overall stocking rate at present is 1200 cattle with a projected target of 2000.
