The British Simmental Review 2022

After a calf is born,
and its sire or dam
have already been tested PP,
then all we have to do is put the
ear tag in, jot down its sex and
weight. We are saving at least
10 minutes per calf, as well as
the stress,” he explains.
Unsurprisingly, I haven’t met
anyone else using a homozygous
polled bull who would go back to
horned and nor would we.”
Progressing the Highcross breeding programme
has proved to be a demanding journey for the
Barnes. “Sourcing outcross homozygous stock
bulls in the UK is very difficult. In fact, only a
handful of PP tested bulls have been offered at
the breed society’s official sales in the last three
years, consequently the majority of the bulls we
use are sourced from Denmark where breeders
are amongst the most internationally advanced
when it comes to breeding homozygous PP
cattle with quality conformation, milk and
calving ease.”
“The Danish sires introduced to Highcross
include Egebjerggards Pesto PP and Rosas
Munk PP together with Jaegergard Leopold PP,
Vingegaard Lucas Pp, Rosas Munk PP, Rosas
Loftus PP, Langmose Ricci PP, Bakkely Pedro PP,
Svend PP, and Nygard Ras Pp.”
Apart from the Danish bulls, all other sires used
in the Highcross herd are DNA tested to ensure
they have the correct combination of poll genes.
The Barnes also test every animal pre-sale – at
the farm gate or in the ring as well as every
heifer pre-calving, for polled status and sire
verification. “If for example a bull’s parentage
is heterozygous polled Pp, then we are very
mindful to inform farmers of the theoretical
chances of how many horned calves he could
throw.”
He adds: “Having achieved the level of success
we have to date with the herd’s next generation,
then we believe we are well on the road towards
fulfilling our objective to breeding that ideal
Simmental - homozygous polled PP with good
mobility and temperament, combined with
those essential maternal traits – milk, easy
calving along with growth, shape and carcase
quality meeting our bull finishing targets 390kg
to 410kg within 12 to 14 months.”
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