CATTLE
The herd, consisting of both Pedigree and Non Pedigree Simmental cattle, at Bowley Court Farms owes its roots and its excellent reputation to Charles Mercer.
History
The Simmental originates from the Simmen Valley in the Berner Oberland in Switzerland. The breed spread and established itself in Middle Europe more than 100 years ago. The Simmental has been bred in Britain for more than 25 years, and has been successfully introduced into all five continents, it has a world population of 41 million.
Qualities
Simmentals are known as one of the world's most adaptable breeds and this is shown by the different breed programmes used throughout the world. We use the Simmental for breeding purposes and meat, although it can also be used for dairy. The breed has a high fertility rate, good mothering ability and a docile nature, this enables the breed to be used as a superior suckler cow, combined with hardiness and their high beef yields, those are a few of the advantages of the breed which influenced the decision to introduce the Simmental to Bowley Court Farms.
Simmentals at Bowley Court Farms
We aim to keep the management of the cattle very simple. We try to keep the animals as quiet as possible as too much handling and moving knocks them about, this principle fits in well with trying to manage over 1000 heads of cattle at any one time combined with the other activities of the extremely diverse farm business. The 400-cow suckler herd calves from March to May, with bull calves left entire and finished on a semi-intensive system at 14-15 months. Heifers not required as replacements are either sold as bulling heifers or finished on the farm, with those kept for breeding calved at two years old. We calve them at two years rather than three as there is less calving problems and we do not have to keep them that extra unproductive year.
We market the cattle from 14 months onwards and this is done by a visual assessment and most, including all the bulls are sold on direct contact. Some of the heifers go to a local butcher but the direct approach is favoured. The only cattle brought on to the unit are bulls and again these are selected on a visual assessment although we do have to be careful about genetics as its difficult to find bulls that are not related to the stock we have in some way.
Further information
If you would like further information on the Simmental cattle at Bowley Court Farms, or are interested in buying cattle please contact Charles Mercer on 01568 797666 or by email enquiries@cmmercer.co.uk