Wealden Times | WT186 | August 2017 | Wedding supplement inside

Jane Howard’s
Fables from the Farm
Jane explores what’s in a name when it comes to bloodlines
When our holiday cottage
visitors wander around the
farm they always want to
know the names of the animals they meet
along the way. But truth be told most of
the stock on the farm – and certainly those
that will end up as Sunday lunch – don’t
have a name. So for the younger visitors
we sometimes make it up – Lucky, Stripy,
Spot... whatever. All good until they come
back another year and ask where they can
find Lucky, Stripy and Spot. But there’s
always another brown cow, spotty pig or
bottle fed lamb to serve as a doppelganger.
But we do have names
for all the pedigree stock
– that’s the cows, the bulls
and sometimes the rams. I
spend a great deal of time
contemplating blood lines
and potential suitors for our
herd of pedigree Sussex cows.
Luckily the names are predetermined
– the Coopers
pre-fix, followed by the
mother’s name and then a
number. Our female “lines” are Daffodil,
Snowdrop, Delia, Lofty Lily and Heedless
so among this year’s crop – which is how
farmers refer to a batch of calves – we
have Coopers Daffodil 17th and Coopers
Lofty Lily 10th. Some of the older herds
in the country, like the Petworth herd at,
well, Petworth were founded more than
200 years ago and their female lines are
now numbered well into the hundreds –
we’ve hardly got off the starting block!
“the names are
pre-determined
– the Coopers
pre-fix, followed
by the mother’s
name and then
a number”
To run a pedigree herd you breed and
keep your cows and then every three
years you buy a new bull to bring in
fresh genes. He “works” for three years
after which time he has to be sold on
because his daughters would then be old
enough to need a bull. And along comes
a new younger model. No comment. In
our time here we have had a Supreme,
a Major, a General, a Wellington and
now Gorgeous George who is more
correctly Regent 7th of Goldstone.
But George came three years ago so
when he has finished serving the cows
this summer it will be
time for him to move on
to pastures new and for
us to find a replacement.
But increasingly this is
a problem, for only five
or six Sussex herds breed
bulls – there’s a great deal
of time, effort and expense
involved – and the gene
pool is getting too small
for comfort. So another
option is to get new bull bloodlines by
crossing the cattle to another pedigree
breed – a Limousin, Angus or Shorthorn
say – and then take it from there.
How does that work? Well the first
generation cross is 50% Sussex and, say,
50% Angus and is referred to as an A. If
that A beast was bred with a pure Sussex
the next generation would be 75% Sussex,
B, and one more time and you’d have
one that was 87.5% Sussex and 12.5%
other, a C at which point it is considered
to be pure and can be registered in
the Sussex Herd Book. All good but
it takes about 10 years to get there.
But not everyone agrees with this cross
breeding. There is a core of breeders who
consider it vital to retain the original
Sussex bloodlines. It was back in 1840
that the lineage of Sussex cattle were
first recorded and the official Herd
Book was opened in 1879, so it’s not
difficult to trace back those animals that
have never had any “dodgy” ancestors
and can truly claim to be 100% pure.
And not surprisingly there aren’t many
of them. These are identified by an *
after their pedigree name, as opposed
to an A, B, C, D or E, and although
we don’t have any, I can quite see there
is a role going forward for both.
Genes, George, Generations….
plenty to think about as this
glorious hot summer continues.
Follow Jane Howard – and the farm
– on Instagram @coopersfarm
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