FARMER FOCUS: Getting ruthless with yearling pedigree bulls

Finally the plough has blackened the ground, which makes a change from the moles doing it. The beans are sown, P & K has been applied to the winter crops and the Bluefaced Leicester ewes have started lambing.

Our new Charolais stock bull Elgin Glenlivet has settled in well. He stood champion at the Stirling Sale and still looks impressive beside the cows.

We had highs and lows with our own Limousin bull sale line up, winning the overall championship and selling to 7,000gns was great, but failing to sell five of our 13 bulls forward was really disappointing. There were just too many bulls forward for the number of buyers present. As a result we have been extremely ruthless with our yearling bulls – 10 have been kept for sale in May and 14 have been deregistered and are now in the killing pen. A number of them have already been sold, killing out at E and U grades and, most importantly, amounting to good money. Why take a pedigree bull to a sale and only get bid 2,500gns, when you can kill them for £1,700 at 14 months old with none of the additional pedigree sale costs?

The last of the hill-born lambs and the remainder of the feeding ewes have been sold fat off turnips. The price increase over the last few weeks has been vital, as the feed bills just keep on rising. The hill ewes’ scanning results were slightly back on the year, with fewer triplets – 156% for the Blackfaces and 149% for the Cheviots.

The seed grain is all dressed and sitting ready to sow, but grass is a scarce commodity, so a wee bit of sun and no more white stuff would make everyone’s lives a bit easier.

Bob Adam and his wife Kay run 100 pedigree Limousin and Charolais cows on their 222ha family farm in Angus and rent a 728ha hill farm farming 640 ewes and 30 suckler cows.

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