Producing beef super efficiently on a low input system and having made various changes to achieve this, is the secret of the success of the business run by Alisdair and Emma Davidson, of Poldean Farm, Moffat.
They are running 300 Salers cows, which are put to the Charolais as a terminal sire for breeding store calves, on a paddock grazing system to help utilise the ground.
The Salers are renowned for easy calving and good milk production and were introduced at Poldean by Alisdair’s parents, Jennifer and the late Willie, in 1991, but with the farm’s beef cattle and sheep being culled out in the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic, the Davidsons had to re-establish their herd.
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They travelled to France to purchase new foundation stock as well as buying from other local Salers breeders.
In their herd of 300 breeding cows, 80% are pure Salers, with 120 being pedigree and the remainder of the herd are red Aberdeen-Angus cross Salers. They introduced Red Angus into the herd in 2017 after purchasing a bull from Mosshall to put over some of their Salers to add some high bred vigour into their females and increase the value of the bullocks.
Replacement heifers – of both the Salers cross Angus and pure Salers – are all bred on the farm. “The maternal Salers traits are very important to our breeding system here at Poldean and we wouldn’t want to lose these.
"They enable us to easily calve a large number of cattle outside with just one member of staff. Adding a touch of Angus has helped us to cash the bullocks a bit easier while the Angus cross Salers still leaves us with a good female for retaining which is the main reason, we went down this route. The breed is also easy fleshing, high vigour and do well on a grass-based diet,” said Emma.
The most recent Salers stock bulls were bought at 11-months-old from the Livesey family, so that Alisdair could control their diet early on and allow them to mature slowly to fit their system.
Calving takes place outside over an eight week period in May and June. A select group of the best pedigree Salers cows are put to a Salers bull and a group of young cows go to the Angus.
Everything else will go to a Charolais bull for breeding that store calf that the market demands, up until last year all Charolais bulls were also bought over from France.
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“France tend to breed the type of bull I am looking for that fits our system well,” said Alisdair, however the most recent purchase came from Richard McCornick, of the Ricnick herd, is promising to be the type of bull that the Davidsons look for.
Going forward, the couple hope that they can continue to source suitable bulls closer to home as opposed to bringing them in from France.
Everything is sold store at 10-12 months of age, beginning to sell them in February and taking cattle every fortnight to Castle Douglas, where Alisdair is a director at Wallets Marts.
Previously, they sold through multiple markets but due to their cattle always selling consistently well and building up a loyal, regular customer base, they now only sell through CD.
“Nothing beats the ginger Charolais bullocks in the ring, they are easy to sell, and the store ring demands that Charolais cross,” said Alisdair.
When they are still on their mothers at grass the herd regularly averages 1.5kg daily live weight gain, and once on their winter diets and weaned the targets is an average of 1kg a day.
All cattle are EID tagged and they make use of technology to help monitor performance, with all cattle weights recorded in Agriwebb every time they go through the crush and cattle are batched and managed accordingly.
To help achieve these live weight gains calves have been re-introduced to crep feeding this year, and once the cattle are housed for the winter they will be fed a silage based diet with barley, lucerne hay and protein.
Calves are currently being crep fed home-grown oats, as well as receiving protein from the grass – this is the first time oats have been grown on Poldean and supports Alisdair and Emma’s ethos of becoming more sustainable and reducing their reliance on bought in feed.
By growing more crops – barley, oats, peas and clover – as well as understanding their ground more through soil analysis the feed bills have quartered at Poldean since 2018.
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They have also moved to taking three cuts of better quality silage to help reduce the need for concentrates. Historically, the farm has not grown any crops and so this has been a big step but is so far proving successful and helping to reduce their carbon footprint and sustainability.
Another way of reducing input costs and moving towards their efficiency goal has been the elimination of the use of fertiliser, they made the switch to digestate after investing in a slurry lagoon in 2019.
“The way fertiliser prices were going we just could not justify the costs, and thankfully this year we have not had to buy any, the digestate has made just as good of job with the paddock grazing system we have in place, and it has been a good year for growing grass,” said Alisdair.
In 2017, they made the decision to adapt their enterprise from a traditional, set stock system to paddock grazing, to help utilise the grass all year round, which has certainly done that.
“It is a game changer to how we grow grass, I first went to a QMS meeting and wondered why I had never heard about it before.
"We are in the right area for growing grass with the correct volume of rain fall, so it really was a no brainer,” said Alisdair, with all the electric fencing and water troughs being the major initial investment in the plan.
Cattle are put into batches and moved paddocks every two days, with the field given roughly 16 days to rest in the summer and one month to rest at this time of year. As well as the mindset shift, it has required them to split up fields into smaller paddocks and there has already been 50 water troughs installed with more to come.
Emma added: “Our goal is to produce a product that the market wants, as efficiently as possible, by making the best use of the key natural resources we have available to us. You really can’t put a price on what you can grow in your fields. It has been an enjoyable and rewarding journey so far.”
The benefits are outweighing the work involved in moving the stock and electric fencing for the operation at Poldean which has ultimately become more efficient, and the Davidsons have been able to increase their stocking rates whilst again keeping those feed costs low.
“Everything we do to improve efficiency is also reducing our carbon footprint. By being part of the GrassCheck GB Programme, it helped me to regularly measure and utilise the farm’s grass, and I am now able to visually see it without measuring it every week.
“I am now managing to quantify how much grass there is, so I can predict how much I have infront of us to feed stock. We grew a lot of grass this year, one paddock grew close to 18 tonnes, which I never thought we could manage here in Moffat,” he added.
Just like everything else on the farm, Poldean's team are striving for a minimal input, maximum output system, which the sheep enterprise certainly brings, ultimately helping to make the farm more efficient and profitable.
The flock of 450 ewes now lamb solely outside in May. Their previous system with double the number of ewes, lambed inside in April and was hard work. The change to a slightly later lambing takes advantage of the better weather and works with the grass growth, and sheep very rarely need any intervention.
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“The sheep require a lot of protein on the run up to lambing and because they are given no hard feed, they have to find sufficient nutrients from the grass, which is achieved at that time of year,” said Alisdair, who has a strict culling policy with the sheep, if anything requires assistance it will be culled.
“Despite not feeding we still don’t have any problems with milking either, the sheep are hardy and are able to out winter on our ground, we let ewes run with triplets to avoid having pet lambs.”
Although the flock are not scanned due to everything being treated the same, a weaning percentage of 150% is achieved for the flock.
Around 120 ewe lambs will be retained each year, due to the strict culling policy the farm has, with the remaining ewe lambs and tup lambs sold fat through the live ring at Castle Douglas.
Having traditionally had pure Lleyns the flock now also consists of Cheviot and Innovis breeding, but always keeping that white face.
Uniformity is important, too, with Alisdair trying to stick to white faced sheep and red cows (other than a handful of Belties that Emma has sneaked on)
There have been several changes to modernise the business since Alisdair and Emma moved to Poldean in 2017, building on what Willie and Jennifer established.
“The problem is, we have all of our eggs in the same basket, which we have yet to solve but we are always looking at ways to diversify,” said Emma, however the majority of our land is not really suitable for anything else other than livestock.
Alisdair added: “Having secured a tenancy at Cogries farm in 2008 we initially thought we were going to expand our cattle numbers to 400 head, but we soon realised we were just as profitable doing what we are doing now without increasing our numbers.
"It is not all about numbers, it is about being efficient. What Cogries has done is give us the extra acres to produce more silage and crops to cut costs elsewhere.”
“However, there is a reason there are so many suckler cows being put off this year and it is something we have to be mindful of. Short-term, I do think it is going to be tough for beef farmers who are trying to battle the storm, however, if we can tell our story right and work with what we have I think there is a bright future for food production in this country.”
“We need to create an opportunity and continue to do what we do best, producing beef and lamb as efficiently as possible,” concluded Alisdair and Emma.
Farm facts
History: The Davidson family first moved to Poldean in 1969 and the farm is set on the Crown Estate.
Involvement: Alisdair and Emma, with Alisdair’s mum, Jennifer still a partner in the business. There are two-full time employees on the farm, tractor man, Ryan Johnstone and stockman, Jamie Clark.
Acreage: The upland farm carries 2250 acres rising to 1800ft above sea level.
Livestock numbers: 317 cows to the bull, along with eight Belted Galloways. On the sheep front the 450 ewes are a mixture of pure Lleyn and Cheviots along with some Innovis breeding.
On the spot questions
Best investment: Electric fencing.
Biggest achievement: Finalist of AgriScot, Scotch Beef Farmer of the Year 2018.
Best advice: Always be willing to try new things and embrace change.
If you could change one thing, what would it be? For the general public to understand the real story of farming.
Where do you see yourself in 2032? Diversifying in some way by adding another string to our bow.
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