Native breeds are finding favour with farmers and providing good eating beef

The farmer has picked up national awards for the way in which he provides fellow beef farmers with access to outlets they may struggle to find; and the relationship he has built in the food chain in the live market and direct to abattoir.

“The better news in the meat sector right now is the growing story of the rise of local butchers and farm shops. In many ways it’s a return to years ago and long may that continue,” he said.

For years the livestock markets, abattoirs and butchers have professed a preference for continental cross cattle on the basis that this gave beef with less fat than traditional native breeds, but Doug has seen the improvements that have been made in heritage breeds, particularly in the last few years and believes they are now on a parallel with continental cross cattle.

“Native breeds have come right back in the past two to three years and are now comparable with the best continental beef. There is a definite trend towards Angus and Hereford beef being bang on the R4L requirements for lean and fat content and I see better bull calves out of dairy cows being the next success story.

“Quicker beef growth is the important thing, as well as extremely high health status, but it all comes down to selling more beef that eats well and better education of the consumer that fat is not a bad word, so long as you don’t have two inches of fat around the outside.

“We have two distinct areas with two-thirds of our enterprise known as D&P Custom Feeding relating to steers and heifers coming to us at 18-20 months, after having been outside on grass, that we take to finished weight 90 days later; and one-third of what we do being young bulls that come to us at seven months that we then feed for 180 days before they are ready.

“The steers and heifers come after they have been outside on grass at home on their farms. That means we get them as rangy animals and how I best describe them as big empty houses that we then hang as much meat on to them through feeding what we grow on the farm. We take them to 21-23 months. What we are trying to do is to educate farmers about being more efficient. They don’t need to take animals to 30 months.

“If they don’t this allows for less methane output and also less transportation as often cattle are sold on as stores and then on to a finisher. What this means is all of the cattle we have are still under the farmer’s ownership.

“We provide the way of getting their cattle to market more quickly, with less expense and a better price because their cattle are meeting the specifications. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

Doug fattens upwards of 2,000 cattle in a good year and deals with farmer customers as far afield as Northern Ireland, Wales, Devon and Darlington.

“The bulls, largely Salers and Stabilisers, form a smaller proportion of our business and we work closely with our farmer customers and the abattoirs on achieving consistency.”

It is Doug’s analytical approach to cattle performance, through monitoring weight gains and feed conversion rates, that has proved instrumental in his continued success and has led to greater numbers of farmers realising that bed and breakfast for beef cattle can be just as rewarding as the practice has proved in pigs.

“We charge the owners a fixed cost charge per animal and a feed charge that increases as the animal’s daily intake rises as they grow. We feed the cattle ‘to appetite’ having weighed them on arrival and re-weigh them regularly to reassess feed intake and weight gain through a Ritchie Beef Monitor system.

“When they are ready their farmer owners can then choose to market the animals themselves or leave it to us. At present, it’s about half that do and half that don’t. We leave that decision completely up to them as what we are doing is ensuring their cattle reach the optimum weight and specification and at the right time.”

Standards of cattle hygiene are paramount and Doug operates a strict intake health protocol designed to minimise risk and ensuring that cattle entering his finishing unit, that can see 800 on site at any one time, meet every requirement.

The farm, which runs to around 1,000 acres with 800 owned, has been in Doug’s family since 1919 and he is the fourth generation. He returned to the farm in 1991 and today the arable and beef farm is run by himself and his wife, Pam. His father, Alan, works alongside him as well as two other men.

In common with every other arable farmer Doug has been hard at work, since the rains finally abated, restructuring his crop sowing for this year’s harvest.

“We did well with wheat last year but this year whatever wheat we drilled earlier, which wasn’t a lot as the weather stopped us, was ruined and I had to take it out using an old Ransome C Tine cultivator that I haven’t used in years. I’ve replaced the winter wheat crop with spring barley.”

Doug is one of the beef industry’s most innovative farmers and he is currently working alongside the BreedR app business on predictive weighing.

“It’s a way in which finance can be offered for stock, in advance of leaving the farm, knowing that stock will be ready at the right time. We market through BreedR which means a proportion of the price will be paid prior to the animal arriving at the processing plant. It assures processors of continuous stock, helps farmers with cash flow and keeps the supply chain strong.”

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