Scottish Club 2019 round up

The popularity of the Beef Shorthorn is as evident as ever in Scotland by the continuing growth of new members joining our Scottish Club.

Delegates on a trip to Co Clare and Co Galway

After the first committee meeting of 2019, we were delighted to announce that C & D Auction Marts Ltd (J Thomson and Sons) were going to sponsor the champion at the five shows with the most exhibitors, based on the previous year’s entries. The competition is now called ‘The Longtown Prize’.

The first event of 2019 was our ‘Supper and Blether’ during the February bull sales at Stirling Golf Club, where many friends gathered and even enjoyed a wee punt at guessing the average price of the bulls to be sold the next day. Calum Clark, Rattray Estate was the lucky winner of the £50 for his guess of 4,453gns. Over £170 was also raised for RSABI.

On 30 May, we took a stand at Scotland’s Beef Event at North Bethelnie, Oldmeldrum, Aberdeen, featuring a Beef Shorthorn cross Simmental heifer with an outstanding heifer calf at foot, kindly loaned by Smallburn Farms. Our ‘guess the weight of the calf’ competition attracted a lot of attention and kept our stand busy all day. The calf weighed 441 kgs and we had two lucky winners who won a bottle of whisky each.

Again, at the Royal Highland Show in June, the Beef Shorthorns had the largest entry of cattle and put on a great spectacle with the supreme championship going to Tom McMillan, Eskiecraggan, Isle of Bute with a two-year-old heifer, Trowbridge Tessa Linsay. The Scottish Club again provided teas, coffees, biscuits and cakes, enjoyed by members and friends for the duration of the show. Our annual barbeque was again held on the Saturday night and this year the club paid tribute to Liz Lang for her dedicated service to the RHS and the Beef Shorthorn breed, with it being her 60th year in attendance. As usual, it was a very popular and sociable evening.

George Irving introduces his Mountbenger herd

Shorthorns at Rowanberry

The last Sunday in July the Club had its annual day trip. Over 60 members and friends had a wonderful day looking at great cattle (and sheep) in amazing weather. Our first hosts were John and Matthew Thomson, Pilmuir Farm, Hawick, where we enjoyed a cuppa together with a fantastic selection of Beth and Anne’s cakes. Matthew told us how he is building up his commercial herd by using cows of various breeds that are being put to the Beef Shorthorn bull, with the young cows showing that the Beef Shorthorn is the ideal base for the suckler cow. We also saw the improvement that he is making to the productivity of the land.

On arrival back at the steading, we viewed cattle which Matthew had brought over from Shawhill: four young bulls, two cows with calves at foot and two heifers.

Moving over to the Yarrow valley, we were welcomed by George and Kirsty Irving at Mountbenger Farm. A tasty lunch was enjoyed by all before we took off on trailers on a farm tour. The first stop was the pedigree Beef Shorthorns, which turned out to be a very uniform group of cows with equally good calves at foot. The next field, commercial cows, proved the value of the Beef Shorthorn bull as they were tremendous Beef Shorthorn x Galloway cows. Over the road we then viewed two very high index young bulls followed by some very good bulling heifers. Back at the farm we saw a selection of Blackface, South Country and North Country Cheviot tups which will all be sold later in the season.

Our third Scottish herds competition was judged by Ian Park this year visiting 27 herds from the Borders to Thurso, up the east coast and down the west.

Looking over the west coast of Ireland

On Friday 20 September, 27 Scottish members found their way by boat, car and plane to Ennis, County Clare to enjoy three very full days of herd visits and much chat. Those of us who flew were met at Shannon airport by one of Shane Brigdale’s minibuses and there the tour began. After we all met up at the hotel, we visited all seven farms and enjoyed the journey back to the airport again using Brigdale’s buses. There’s nothing like all travelling together for good camaraderie as well as enjoying the amazing scenery of the west coast of Ireland.

We had a great start to our weekend visiting the Rowanberry and Buncraggy herds, courtesy of Shane and Frances Brigdale and John Kelly, in beautiful sunshine and great company. We walked through Shane’s Beef Shorthorns seeing good, big, stretchy cows; cattle which we could all relate to and would be more than happy to have at home.

Moving on to John Kelly, we started this visit with a very interesting chat and guessing game about weights of cattle and producing cattle for a very specific market, something of which we probably need to be more aware. We commended him on his bull, Buncraggy Fire Fox graduating from the Gene Ireland Maternal Bull Breeder Programme, and then enjoyed a walk round his cattle.

Day two to County Clare started with Johnny Keane’s well-known Bushy Park herd. Walking from field to field we saw big cows with big frames and some tremendous families, breeding consistently, including four generations of one family together. The second visit of the day was to Anthony and Marie McNamara’s Tintrum herd where we enjoyed viewing the Beef Shorthorns in the various fields and seeing Tintrum Amelia, the All Ireland Champion 2019, as well as other winners. The young calves certainly stood a second look. Marie and her helpers laid on a bite of lunch which was much appreciated.

Four generations of the Bushy Park Beauty family

Fanore Shorthorns on the Burren

The third and last visit that day took us to Mike and Yvonne Conway’s Clonina herd, where we saw cattle that were being bred for muscle for a specific market. Our members appreciated this and were particularly drawn to a red bull calf. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Yvonne was our courier at very short notice throughout our whole trip and we really appreciated her helpful and friendly manner.

Our final day took us on a most picturesque journey along the County Clare coast through the Burren to Pat Casey, part-time farmer of the Fanore herd, where we saw really good working cattle doing a great job under what look like difficult conditions. Amazingly they are out-wintered up the hill and only come in just before they are due to calf. Rowanberry genetics have done a great job in this herd and their present stock bull, again from Shane Brigdale, is leaving some cracking calves.

Last, but not least, of the seven herds we visited was Noel and Lisa Dowd, Creaga Beef Shorthorns in County Galway. A great welcome awaited us with the Scottish flag flying at the entrance to their farm! We all enjoyed walking round their Beef Shorthorns, many of which had won accolades at many big shows. Our members were particularly pleased to see the famous Heidi cow and her mother who is still looking well. The calves we saw in the last field made us think that their showing success will certainly continue.

On return to the barn a lovely tea awaited us, many members also enjoying a wee dram! From here we made our way to Galway Bay to be treated by Tommy Staunton to a most delicious meal with wine. A great end to an unforgettable trip among our Beef Shorthorn family.