Not many people start up a dairy, but it is one that Andrew Baillie of Carstairs Mains believes to help boost his profitable sheep enterprise through his rotational grazing system.
Well known for his Beltex flock, Andrew and his wife, Jennifer, established their flock in 1996, now running around 200 pedigrees which includes 100 Texels, 60 Beltex, and 40 Beltex cross Texel ewes.
“For the job, I am doing there really is no better sire than the Beltex for producing prime lambs, they have the best carcase qualities as well as having good confirmation and killing out percentages,” said Andrew, who added the Texel flock 15 years ago for breeding cross tups for Kelso Ram Sales.
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Which this year Carstairs Mains sold 20 crossing tups to average £980, with 20 pure Texels heading to both Kelso Ram sales and Stirling and cashed in at £1100.
“Our breeding policy always has the commercial man in mind, the majority of our tups will be sold at Kelso Ram Sales, which have to be commercially viable, and we have managed to form a good regular customer base,” said Andrew, who aims to keep them as natural as possible by feeding them forage.
“Our motto is flesh off of grass rather than feeding, they need to be fit, not fat. We want big active tups that hold their confirmation,” he added, with redstart fed to them during the winter and Tyfon on the run-up to the sale.
Just 25 acres of forage crops are grown to cut costs, and since the majority of tups will be sold as shearlings there is no reason to creep feed the pedigree lambs.
It was a year to remember for the Beltex Rams this year, which head to Carlisle, Lanark, or Kelso Ram Sales, with 25 achieving £1984, with a high of 12,000gns.
This was close to the flock’s best of 13,000gns again paid at Carlisle seven years ago.
On the flip side, the most influential tup in recent years has been Wannops Firecracker which was purchased from Carlisle for 8000gns. This year this boy bred shearlings to 11,000gns and gimmers to 6000gns.
The top price of 12,000gns this year was a son of Clary Dumfries – an aged tup bought out of Carlisle – which has bred well for the team. Both of these sires are behind the show lambs this year.
The main shows the Baillies attend are the Royal Highland Show, Beltex National Show, and local shows, Biggar and Carnwath every year.
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Having judged the Beltex in 2019 at the Highland the flock has never won the Beltex however have won the commercial section on several occasions – 2018, 2017, and 2014 being the most recent.
On the winter showing circuit, Andrew also sits on the Scottish National Fat Stock committee, which runs both the Premier Meat Exhibition and LiveScot, in which he also exhibits.
It was a Beltex duo from the team that took the supreme among the sheep at LiveScot last year, having taken the same award in 2019. On the Premier Meat Exhibition side Andrew was the first one to produce a lamb that won both the live section of the competition as well as the carcase competition, which was in 2011.
On the commercial front, it is a cross ewe of the Texel and the Aberdale mating that Andrew uses resulting in such a high scan achieving 220% despite negative flushing these ewes at tupping time to reduce the scanning percentage.
“These hardy types are capable of producing high quality finished lambs and maximizing the benefits of easy lambing for prime lamb production. The Aberdale rams carry the Inverdale® gene for higher prolificacy,” explained Andrew, who gets his tups through Innovis.
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With this high lambing percentage in mind, the ewes are capable of running with triplets, with any gimmer left running with two. It is all hands-on deck at lambing time to help twin on lambs and ensure as few as possible ewes go out with singles.
All lambing takes place indoors for easier management with the pedigrees kicking it off in March, with a two week break before the commercial flock commences in April, to allow time to clean the shed out and rest before the team has to go again.
Housed a couple of weeks prior to lambing, they will be fed a TMR quality silage and soya diet – with silage analysing at 29.0% Dry Matter and 15.3% protein – everything is fed the same from their body weight requirement through a mixer wagon and tractor.
Lambs will be mainly finished off of grass from the start of August to December and sold live through the Lanark auction market, aiming for that 40-42kg liveweight. Selling around 700 lambs annually with the bottom end of the pedigrees not fit for breeding also being sold this way.
Around 30 lambs will be kept in the ‘show pen’ being finished on Smellie and Sons pellets.
Helping to have enough grass for finishing all of these lambs, Andrew moved over to a rotational grazing system around 10 years ago, in which he managed to double his stocking in the same area.
“Managing what you have is the only way to be efficient. I have a good grass growing farm, so it does work well for us,” said Andrew, who used this system when he worked in New Zealand for one year.
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Andrew works a leader-follower grazing rotation, each group grazes a paddock in turn, with the sheep getting the highest quality forage and the cattle hoovering up behind. Aiming to move the stock on when there is four cm of grass left, as that is the optimum re-growth length for the grass.
“Having the cattle also helps reduce worms as they both dilute each other. The initial process is the most time consuming, but once the system is up and running it is simple,” said Andrew, with paddocks around four acres all done by electric fencing, with the family moving the groups every two days.
The idea of rotational grazing occurred when Andrew was one of QMS’s monitor farms about a decade ago, which made them benchmark the whole enterprise, to work out what was profitable, which really has brought them to where they are now.
“We have tried several paths to get to where we have but we now see a strong future here,” said Andrew, who was previously running 100 suckler cows, or bed and breakfasting pigs, or growing crops.
“Arable was good on a good year, but the weather was so unpredictable, and on a bad year margins were pretty poor.
“It was clear as day the suckler cows weren’t making very much money for us, but we realised the importance of having cattle for grazing through our system to make the sheep even more profitable. So, this is why we decided to put the dairy on,” said Andrew.
Aiming to boost profits and keep the rotational grazing at its maximum Andrew went into a joint venture with his brother, Ian, by installing a new dairy unit at Carstairs Mains.
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Ian was previously contract farming in the area which had come to an end, Carstairs Mains did have the initial infrastructure being a previous dairy farm before the Baillie’s time, so it seemed a no-brainer for the family.
“Dairying is always something we had considered but the financial outlay is always a thought, going in partnership worked well with Ian, as he had all the stock ready to go.
“We have taken out a hefty loan to build everything to repay over 25 years but there will still need to be improvements made over the years, with slurry compacity may need to be increased,” said Andrew, with a new 300 cubicle shed installed along with a BouMatic parabone parlour.
Going through the parlour twice a day, the cows' average yield equates to 5500litres, with all milk on a Yew Tree milk contract.
With the Jerseys on a grass-based system cow tracks and paddock fencing also had to be installed since putting the dairy on in April 2022.
Currently running 250 Jersey cows, all heifers are currently being retained to get to the aim of 300 cows next year. Calving down at two years old, same sexed semen is mainly used along with a small number of beef semen, where the beef calves will be sold at one month of age privately to Neil Laing.
The future at Carstairs Mains is strong for the Baillie family with the main aim of being efficient and effective always in mind.
“The lack of subsidies in the future is going to have to make more farmers aware of their finances and what actually works on farm, people have to adapt to become profitable and be more efficient.
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“In general, I personally think the sheep industry has a lot of improvements to be made, it is the furthest behind industry in regard to genomics, having been involved in the pig industry and now in the dairy, they are so advanced using technology to their advantages and making the most out of the data they collect – it is now the sheep industries turn,” concluded Andrew.
FARM FACTS
History: Andrew and Jennifer Baillie have been at Carstairs Mains for 13 years.
Livestock numbers: 550 breeding sheep plus followers along with 250 cows plus followers.
Acreage: 450 acres.
Involvement: Andrew and Jennifer, with their son, Cameron also working full time splitting his time between the sheep and dairy unit, which is run by Andrew’s brother, Ian. Andrew’s daughter, Rachel is currently studying at Harper Adams but is head of PR at sale time and is also heavily involved at lambing time, with her youngest daughter, Lauren (7) still at school.
ON THE SPOT QUESTIONS
Best investment? Electric fence equipment
Best advice? Just because that’s the way it’s always been done doesn’t mean there’s no better way.
Biggest achievement? My family.
Where do you see yourself in 2033? Hopefully, we will expand our business and watch the next generation take control.
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