The British Simmental Review 2022

The family sold the heifer, Denizes Eve’s Beauty 7 th at December’s
NxtGen sale at Carlisle, for 8,000gns. She is a daughter of Auroch
Eve, and sired by Blackford Galaxy, another privately bought bull
that’s proved his worth in the herd. He was breed champion at
the Royal Highland in 2018 and has bred sons to 9,500gns. More
recently, Saltire Impressive joined the herd, a bull with excellent
figures, including huge growth rates but also ease of calving.
“We do pay a lot of attention to figures because we’ve found they
do make a difference. Denizes Hamish is in the top 1% for calving
ease – he was a small when born but thrived from that day onwards
and that’s what you want. The buyers are noticeably paying attention
to figures too – we had eight bulls at a sale recently, four with better
figures than the other four. There was a far higher demand for the
four with better figures, they sold easily.
“Growth is important, along with ease of calving, but customers
are also looking at milk figures. Commercial buyers often outbid
pedigree buyers at sales – it just depends where your priorities are.
For us, we would rather buy the bull we want than a tractor.”
Despite plenty of success at shows and winning the breed
championship at the Royal Highland three times, John says they are
not breeding cattle to win a show – they’re breeding for what the
commercial buyer wants.
“We’re very much focussed on sales rather than shows but having
some success at the shows definitely helped us build up the name of
the herd and it’s a good opportunity to break in the young bulls. The
main reason we show though, is because we enjoy the social side of
it!,” adds John, who has noticed an increase in new breeders over the
past 3-4 years.
“It’s a fairly accessible breed for new breeders to get into, compared
to some other breeds. If you turn up to a sale with a good
commercial bull, it will sell, no matter who you are. From Cornwall to
Thainstone, there’s a huge demand for Simmentals all over the UK.
“I think the breed is particularly relevant now. They are a long-lasting,
low input breed that can rear a calf – and as costs continue to rise,
these qualities are more important than ever,” adds John.
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