Alasdair Boden: Highland cattle provide an Instagram opportunity

When picking a breed of livestock there are many factors to consider.

The land you have, the available housing, market trends etc.

However, there’s a new consideration – how Instagramable they are.

See also: Alasdair Boden: ‘Accidental’ farmers bring fresh ideas

About the author

Alasdair Boden

Having been brought up in Kendal, Alasdair Boden returned to the Lake District in 2019 when he and his wife, Heather, bought a holiday cottage business. The 37-year-old describes himself as an “accidental farmer’ having later acquired the 40ha historically connected to the enterprise.

Read more articles by Alasdair Boden

When I decided to reintroduce cattle to Low Nest, I took to what was then called Twitter (back in the good old days when it was useful) and asked for people’s thoughts.

As a new entrant, the most important characteristic was ease of handling – and, despite the horns, the runaway favourite was the Highland.

My land is not very good and I don’t have much barn space so need to outwinter stock, therefore they were perfect in this respect.

But above all, it was the sheer number of vets who rated them for their docile nature that won me over.

So, 18 months ago, I merrily drove up to the Borders and collected my heifers.

Once back, they settled in and I couldn’t have asked for a more gentle beast.

Now, we have holiday accommodation on site and the Highlands are a firm favourite with guests who snap away, posting on their socials.

But we’ve also started geting people park on our drive to photograph them.

They walk over the fields to take a selfie with them and soon they were going viral, with people on Facebook groups asking where they could photograph them.

The mainstream press is intermittently putting out stories of cows trampling the public and here they were trying to hug one.

But I’ve had a change of heart. Yes, the public are annoying, but this is a chance to change the narrative of cattle.

So, the grand plan this summer is to bring the girls back up to front of stage.

Only this time I’ll pepper the paddocks with info boards in the hope of educating the public about how to stay safe around cattle.

And why we need them on the land and, above all, the importance of backing British farming.

Will it make a difference? I can never presume, but I can always hope.