Outwintering Angus cows on Shetland yields cost savings of £98/cow

Shetland farmer Jamie Leslie has significantly reduced winter housing costs by running a strict selection policy and paying close attention to grazing.

Mr Leslie keeps a herd of 90 Aberdeen-Angus suckler cows, alongside a flock of 1000 April-lambing ewes, across 860 acres at Scholland Farm, near Virkie on mainland Shetland.

All cattle are either kept for breeding or finished on the farm to supply cattle to Sound Butchers in Lerwick, and lambs are either finished on grass, when it’s available, or sold as stores.

Bullocks are outwintered on Shetland

Mr Leslie, who has won various industry awards in recent years, says high transport costs for bringing inputs to the Shetland Isles have forced him to focus on making the most out of home-grown forage.

“Over the last few years, I have been using budgeting software Farmax to plan and model the farm business,” said Mr Leslie.

“Winter housing was identified as one of the main drains on costs, so I’ve worked to minimise the time cattle spend inside. This has largely been possible due to the hardy nature of the Aberdeen-Angus cattle and the breed’s ability to thrive on grass.”

A strict selection and breeding policy is key to ensuring cattle can graze outside for nine months of the year at Scholland, where cows are only housed for calving in the spring.

“To enable us to run the herd outside on a farm so far north, a strict selection policy is in place for breeding stock,” explained Mr Leslie.

“Bulls are selected for positive fat and intramuscular fat (IMF) with a lower mature cow weight – this gives a cow that is easy-fleshing, with a decent level of IMF, and not too big.”

All stock bulls are bought privately from farms in Scotland and on one occasion from a herd in England. One of the best bulls to date has been Fordel Erling, with some three-year-olds in the herd having already calved, when all replacements are home-bred and heifers calve down at two years of age.

Jamie Leslie relies on the hardy, low maintenance costs of the Aberdeen-Angus on Shetland

Selection for fertility is also a focus at Scholland and replacement heifers are given six weeks with the bull, while mature cows are given nine weeks to get in calf.

Mr Leslie acknowledges that calving cows in March is early in relation to grass growth on Shetland, however calving at this point in the year allows him to supply 15-16-month-old grass-finished steers to Sound Butchers from July the following year.

Once cows have calved, they are turned out onto sand dunes in early April and once in-bye grass growth starts – usually the first week of May – Mr Leslie starts running a rotational grazing system.

“Ewes and lambs are also brought into the rotation at the beginning of June and grazed on a leader-follower system with the cows,” said Mr Leslie.

“This means the ewes graze each paddock for two days – giving them the best grass and driving their lactation – and cows and calves follow the sheep by grazing the remainder of the grass over the following two days.”

This leader-follower system is run until August when lambs are weaned, with the cows and calves staying on the rotational grazing system until weaning mid October.

“This ensures the calves have access to better quality grazing as they start to transition from their mother’s milk to a complete-grass diet,” said Mr Leslie.

“At weaning, cows move to grass that has been deferred over the summer and stay out until early February eating a combination of deferred grass, hay, straw and silage.”

He said the move to outwintering the cows has paid dividends with cost savings of £98 per cow achieved in the past which is likely to be higher this year due to rising input costs.

“Selection for positive fat means cows are around body condition score 4 at weaning time; this gives them a reserve over winter,” added Mr Leslie.

Once calves are weaned, they are split into steer and heifer groups, with the heifers housed and the steers outwintered.

Farm data for 2022 shows the average weaned weight for calves was 288kg, based on the calves getting no creep feed during the summer.

“Over the winter, heifers are fed grass silage and 1.5-2kg of home-grown barley until late February, they are then transitioned to a silage-only diet,” said Mr Leslie.

The outwintered steers are fed fodder beet and good quality grass silage, aiming to achieve a daily liveweight gain of 0.6kg a day.

“While 0.6kg a day may not seem exciting to most, I find this sets the calves up to perform well on grass the following summer.”

“Last year I had some yearling steers housed, and the remainder were outside on beet. Once they were all back out to grass, those that had wintered on beet peaked at daily growth rates of 1.98kg in June and July, which was 0.5kg a day higher than the housed steers.”

The first of his steers are finished in July when they are around 16-months-old to meet the butcher’s target of a 310kg carcase.

“Calves are then marketed from grass through until October when grass quality starts to drop, however cattle growth rates at this time are still running at around 1.1-1.2kg a day,” added Mr Leslie.