QUALITY BREEDING FEMALE FAMILIES UNDERPIN PROLIFIC AUCHORACHAN SIMMENTALS

Here we feature Michael Durno, who along with his wife Morag, and father Leslie, run the noted pedigree and commercial Auchorachan Simmental herd at Glenlivet, Ballindalloch, Banffshire.

Michael Durno with some of the spring calving herd

Whilst the type of cattle have changed over time to meet market demands, the basis of the cattle system at Auchorachan Farm in Glenlivet, has remained the same for 40 years – putting Simmental cross cows to Charolais and Simmental bulls, to produce quality store calves to sell through the market at a year old. It’s a system that works and it’s one that the Durno family do very well.

Michael Durno is now the third generation of his family to farm at Auchorachan, a 2800-acre Crown Estate farm, which his grandfather Duncan first took on the tenancy of in 1953. There, with his wife Morag, he runs 160 cows, alongside his father Leslie, who mainly manages the sheep flock of 600 Perth-type Blackfaces. Full time employee Peter Tinney is also part of the team.

“We have 450 acres of grass here at Auchorachan and the rest is heathery hill which the Blackies graze. We breed 450 of them pure and the other 150 go to Texel tups, with all the lambs fattened and sold through Woodhead. We manage to grow 30 acres of barley each year, which is always a challenge – the farm is very steep and we have long, harsh winters and a short growing season,” explains Michael.

On the cattle side, the herd comprises 75 pedigree Simmentals, small herds of pedigree Charolais, Aberdeen-Angus and Salers, and 65 commercial suckler cows (mainly Simmental crosses).

Michael says: “We’ve used Simmental bulls for breeding replacement females for as far as I can remember. We had a great old bull called Cloford Kernel, which bred really well – we had great females off him. That’s probably what got us hooked on the Simmentals.”

It wasn’t until 2002 that the Auchorachan pedigree herd was established though, with the purchase of four heifers from the Ravensworth dispersal.
“We initially bought those heifers for the commercial herd, but we were so pleased with them that we decided to keep them pedigree. So, I registered with the Society at that point and the herd was built from there,” explains Michael.

Other early purchases included two from Hector McCaskill’s Woodhall herd, one from Delfur and another, Greenlea Hilly, from a local on-farm dispersal. The five main breeding families in the herd today, stem from these original purchases, with the ‘Hilly’ family being the most numerous. The Ravensworth Madie family has probably been the most successful at breeding bulls, such as Wizard, Winger, AC/DC, Hercules and Landmark.

“Those families are very milky lines, so we were lucky with the start that we got. The four Ravensworth heifers were bought and delivered home for £520 per head – a bargain now that we know how they’ve bred,” says Michael.

“A main focus for us has been breeding cattle that are good on their legs. Our cows normally average 820kg, which is not huge for a pedigree cow, but we don’t want them any bigger than that on our ground, which sits at 1000ft. We aim for softer fleshed females that will carry flesh at grass with no extra feeding.

“The female classification scheme has been a great addition to the Simmental Society and I think it is more relevant than any other figures in the breed. We now have 54 VG or Excellent cows within our herd. I think it gives buyers confidence that the bulls they are buying are out of good, structurally correct, milky female lines,” says Michael. “Also, EBVs are not that well suited to beef herds in the UK in my opinion, as we have so many different herd sizes and so many totally different rearing systems. For example, in my herd, it suits our system to bull any poorer females with the Charolais bull, to produce an excellent commercial animal, but this takes out the bottom end of the contemporary group of calves being recorded and so disadvantaging the top end calves in their EBVs,” he adds.

Bulls have been carefully selected over the years to compliment the female lines at Auchorachan. Early on, Saltire Talent, bought from Perth, and the Irish-bred Clonagh Tiger Gallant, ran in tandem with each other. Michael says the shape and carcase of Tiger, combined with the length and height of Talent, proved a winning combination. The Saltire Talent son, Auchorachan Wizard, was placed overall champion at Stirling in 2010 and sold for 20,000gns, while Auchorachan Winger, by Clonagh Tiger Gallant, made 10,000gns the same day.

Another Irish purchase, Rawbawn Caesar King, bred particularly good daughters, and then Team Fergus, produced both sons and daughters of note. He was a show winner himself, standing reserve male at the Royal Highland in 2015.

Auchorachan Hercules

Currently, the home-bred bull Auchorachan Hercules is ticking all the boxes. He is a son of Auchorachan AC/DC, another by Saltire Talent, which sold for 12,000gns at Stirling in 2011. Michael had taken semen off the bull prior to his sale, which is how the story of Hercules starts: “I kept AC/DC semen for my own use, but David Hazelton of the Ranfurly herd was keen to use him, so he did so on the condition that I got a fertilised embryo back, out of his show cow, South Park King Kong Weikel 2nd.”

The results of that transaction was Hercules, which Michael kept to use himself. That proved a wise decision, as Hercules sons averaged £10,500 in 2021, selling to a top of 18,000gns for Auchorachan Landmark.

One of Michael’s favourites, Auchorachan Holly, mother of the 18,000gns Auchorachan Landmark with his full sister

Michael has recently been dabbling with polled genetics. Auroch Hudson, a heterozygous polled bull from Ireland, has been used in conjunction with Hercules, and this year, the homozygous polled Jaegergard Quebec, has been imported from Denmark.

“Both of these bulls boast different bloodlines and the fact that they are polled and also look the part, is quite exciting. I’ve been out to Denmark and have seen that bull’s sire, dam and granny, a top show cow, so I know it has quality breeding behind it,” he says.

Another exciting recent purchase is Greencap Kane, bought for 9000gns in 2020 – which Michael describes as being ‘typical’ of the type of bull he likes. “He is long, correct on his legs, well-muscled, with character too. His first calves are on the ground now and looking very promising.

Auchorachan Emily EX94 with her AC/DC bull calf Malcolm

“With both the pedigree and commercial herd, it’s always worth investing in a good quality bull. My Grandfather always used to say that when buying a bull, you should expect to pay the price of 10 of your best bullocks – and I think that should still be the case.”

While Michael takes a great interest in the pedigree breeding lines, in practise, the pedigree cattle are run very much commercially, along with the entire herd. The bulk of the cows (110) calve in the autumn and the rest from January through to May.

“We have a good array of sheds here on the farm, but we’re at capacity with the number of cattle we have. Outwintering is not an option here as the winters are long and unforgiving. Having the cows in at calving time works well for keeping an eye on them, but luckily we have very few calving problems that require assistance.”

Autumn calves are creep fed through the winter and go out to grass with their dams in May, where they get no further feeding before being weaned in July and they are then sold in September through Thainstone Mart. Last September, the batch of Simmental, Charolais and Salers cross 12-month-old bullocks, averaged £1470 at 477kg, while Charolais and Simmental twin heifers sold to average £1355, weighing 450kg at 12-months.

The calves born in the spring, meanwhile, are introduced to creep feeding from August that year. For the past few years, the cross-bred spring calves that are not being kept as replacements, have all been sold in November to local finisher and Simmental enthusiast Danny Leslie, Redhill, Elgin, who is particularly keen on the high-health status of the herd and the fact they’re Level 1 Johne’s. It’s an arrangement that works well for both – as it means they don’t take up valuable shed space through the winter at Auchorachan.

10 – 12 month old steers are sold in September through ANM Thainstone

Within the pedigree herd, demand for Auchorachan Simmental bulls is always strong, between private sales and those through Stirling and Thainstone Marts. Until recently, the best of the females have mainly been kept for breeding, but with numbers at capacity, Michael is now able to offer select heifers for sale. In December last year, the Auchorachan herd supported the newly established Next Generation Sale of Simmental Females & Weaned Calves at Carlisle and at which they sold Auchorachan Liqueur Madie, a grand daughter of the aforementioned Ravensworth Madie, for 5000gns to Ryan Morgan in Orkney.

“I think the breed has improved a great deal in recent years. There used to be two distinct types of Simmentals – bigger, plainer ones and smaller, thicker ones. Now, they have met somewhere in the middle, which is a good place to be.

“It is a really versatile breed, in that a Simmental-sired female will breed a very marketable calf off any breed or sire. Likewise, a Simmental bull onto any breed of cow can leave great replacement females and also very efficient and profitable males, as shown by the recently published data on days to slaughter statistics,” adds Michael.