ADDS MILK, GROWTH, AND EASE OF MANAGEMENT

Talk to Harry Sordy about the Sordy family’s suckler herd’s genetics, and he says Simmental has proved to be a great piece in the jigsaw puzzle. “Whilst Angus had formed our herd’s backbone, we’d been losing cow performance and wanted to add extra milk and subsequent growth. So we introduced Simmental as a maternal line back in 2015 in an attempt to add some hybrid vigour and the crisscross strategy has achieved our objective. We’ve some very milky cows producing a good solid calf,” he says. “They’re weaning calves at an average 300kg at eight months.” 

What’s more the Simmental has not only enhanced performance but also the family’s quest for improved ease of management. The entire herd comprising 230 breeding females and followers is mostly managed by the Sordy’s stockman, Craig Hardy. “They’ve such a quiet temperament which makes them so easy to manage, in fact I could take on and manage significantly more cows if a decision was taken to expand the herd,” he says. 

Harry continues: “We’ve been selecting Simmental sires for maternal traits and ease of calving, and preferably homozygous poll too – we’re trying to cut down on dehorning, it’s one job we don’t like to do. Furthermore, we take EBVs seriously and would never buy a bull without accompanying data. We’re currently running three bulls including two from Incheoch – they’re good commercially raised bulls leaving easily calved well fleshed calves.”

Nowadays, the Sordys are running one spring calving herd which is split between Simmental cross Angus genetics which they return to the Simmental bull, while Angus cross Simmentals go to the Angus. Craig explains: “We select the heifers for replacement purposes according to their dam’s performance and temperament. Hybrid vigour kicks in and since the calves are much better grown reaching a minimum 400kgs at 14 months bulling, the strategy has enabled us to go from calving heifers at 28 months to 24 months. The bulk of those heifers calve within the first two weeks, while the entire herd calves within three cycles; any that fall outside are culled.” Last season the herd scanned 95% and reared 93% calves.

Pre and post calving the herd thrives on forage, a silage-based diet supplemented with straw and pot ale syrup whilst housed. Plans are 

continues to be a hugely valuable asset, they’re one of the farm’s building blocks and will have a place going forward if we continue to have anything to do with the decision making,” says Harry. 

While we are living in uncertain times, there are so many good farmers out there to learn from. We are frequently picking up and reading that we’d be better off trying to reduce our costs rather than increasing output. We’ve identified housing cows for 20 weeks of the year from 1 November as one of our biggest costs and consequently a key area for focus,” he says. 

“We don’t expect to completely eliminate the housing period, however, ideally we’d like to cut it by eight weeks to 10 to 12 weeks while continuing to house all the cattle a head of calving in March and make savings in terms of straw and fuel. So far, so good – by the third week of December the Simmental crosses were coping well outdoors. “If the weather does turn really bad, we always have the sheds available to bring the cows inside.” 

Alnham Farm joined the AHDB Farm Excellence project in 2021 for a four-year period as one of its four Monitor Farms, a network of a further 15 AHDB Strategic Farms.