Simmentals: Driving Essential Profit in Suckler Finishing

The Smith family have ensured their suckler finishing enterprise is future proofed with purebred Simmentals at the heart of their Herefordshire based mixed farming business.

“Simmentals are playing a significant role – they fit our circular system being well suited to maximising our resources – permanent pasture, straw and potatoes,” Bill explains. “The herd also fits in with the unit’s arable workload and equally important, it is delivering essential profit.

Fact file
Bill Smith, Leominster, Herefordshire: farming in partnership with his wife, Nicky and son, Jack
500ha arable
100ha grassland
150 commercial Simmental breeding females

“The herd additionally provides job satisfaction; we enjoy a non-profitable summer evening looking around the cows and consider just how lucky we are,” he says.

“However, the breed’s future on this unit is over to pedigree breeders, they need to keep maintaining the Simmental’s dual-purpose balance – maintaining milkiness and with no expense to growth. And while the sector has to focus on production efficiency to achieve affordable beef, it must not lose sight of taste.”

The Smith’s breeding strategy for the last quarter of a century has specifically featured females with good temperament, ones that thrive off forage-based diets and are capable of leaving progeny that demonstrate real performance efficiency.

“The majority of the herd calves with minimal intervention within the first two cycles from March onwards,” he explains. Cows and calves are turned out shortly afterwards on to land around the farm that’s only regarded as suitable for grazing – permanent pasture, historic parkland and areas prone to flooding. Calves are weaned and housed at an average seven months with bulls averaging 380kg and heifers 330kg.

Bulls are on target to achieve an overall 1.5kg DLG from weaning to kill at 15 to 16 months, 380kg to 400kg with a 55% KO and the majority within the U- specification. That performance level is achieved from an ad lib finishing diet based on maize silage and homegrown cereals, beans and potatoes introduced on housing.

Similarly, heifers average 1.0kg DLG from weaning to 20 to 22-month slaughter. After overwintering indoors on a forage-based diet, they’re grazed for a second season and introduced to a finishing diet, similar to the bulls, for a short period to reach the 380kg to 390kg target and KO 54%. Conformation target is ‘better than R’ while the majority grade within the U- bracket.

“We sell our cattle deadweight to ABP to ensure they go direct from the farm to the abattoir. Spring 2025 the bulls were coming to approximately £2700 per head, and the heifers around £2600 per head.”

To maintain the breeding cows and heifers in BCS 3 to 3.5 during the winter housing period, they are fed grass silage and ad lib straw supplemented with minerals.

The Smith’s beef enterprise is very much a family affair with Nicky responsible for all the paperwork and Jack taking responsibility with Bill for the calving duties. “We used to run a Hereford cross Friesian suckler herd, however we found sourcing quality replacements was becoming too much of a challenge. We agreed to develop a closed herd and restock with a beef cow that had an innate ability to look after and rear her own calf, have a reasonable amount of milk without issues, demonstrate docility and have cull cow value. Simmental was our first choice.

“We established the herd in 2000 with cattle from a local Simmental herd and since then it’s grown to 150 breeding females. Numbers are however influenced by the fact we are located in a TB hot spot which also rules out selling stores,” he says.

“We continue to carefully select sires by eye – bulls with length together with good temperament and the ability to leave progeny that will finish to both our target weights and within specification. We go to Stirling with a commercial budget and our most recent sires include from Wroxall, Kilbride and Denzies.

“Heifer replacement selection is based on the dam’s history for calving ease, together with conformation and motherability. Pelvic measurements help us to fine tune which heifers are to be retained. They’re sufficiently grown for first breeding at 14 to 15 months to an average 400kg to 450kg to hit our target to calve at two years.”

Bill continues: “Being honest, farming a sole beef enterprise here would not be realistic, however since our main enterprise is potatoes grown on contract for McCains along with some cereals, like so many units, we have land that’s only suited to grazing or for silage and the mix enables us to operate a successful circular farming system.

“Farming Simmental cattle is part of that strategy; they suit the system. Straw bedding helps to create the FYM which in turn minimises purchased inputs, and it contributes to looking after the soil, while seasonal labour requirements tie in nicely with the arable enterprises. The cattle enterprise is able to stand on its own two feet, a critical aspect to our farming business when support payments are no longer readily available.”

Herd KPIs
Two-year calving
95% heifer scan
90% cow scan
90% + calving within the first two cycles
100% reared (predominance of twins)
625kg mature body weight
Six calf crops