2023 Limousin Annual Journal

TECHNICAL
The Goodrest Limousin journey
into polled cattle
Our journey into polled Limousin cattle began in
2011 when we purchased our first homozygous
polled bull from Greensons Limousins in
Cambridge. Until this point, my husband’s family had
produced around 20 store cattle a year from a small
suckler herd using a horned Limousin bull. Dehorning,
was generally hated by all concerned. Whilst taking over
the running of the herd and family farming business, I
had been researching different polled breeds of cattle.
Keen to continue with a Limousin bull, I was shocked to
learn that a polled Limousin even existed! I pursued a
mission to find one and was surprised about how much
negativity I encountered from the people around me.
Despite this, we purchased Greensons Fluke PP.
Not only was Fluke the quietest gentlest bull we had
ever owned, he consistently produced the best calves we
had ever had born from our rather odd and antiquated
selection of cows. Buoyed by our own success, we kept
every single heifer, all polled and these became the basis
for our commercial suckler herd, now 120 strong. We
have since gone on to purchase more bulls from Guy,
including Greensons Howlett PP who resides with us still,
enjoying his old age.
Guy encouraged me to purchase some polled cows
to add to the herd and we also purchased some from
Grahams and began some pedigree breeding. Goodrest
Limousins was launched!
By now, our commercial steers were consecutively
making great gains on previous efforts at our local
Mart, our cattle were really good! They were better,
much better. I’m not sure if this is because Guy had
already done a lot to improve the breed by the time we
purchased Fluke but all our calves were born easily, got
up and fed quickly and grew fast with good shape and
weights for age.
I began to use social media to advertise when our cattle
would be in market and was pleasantly surprised when
people were travelling to buy polled commercial heifers
to breed from and approaching me to purchase polled
stock bulls. After Paul and I became A.I technicians, I
widened my search for different genetics from Europe
and with much help from several semen companies,
some kind people in Germany and France, Switzerland
and Sweden and Sue Stennar in the office at the
Limousin Society I worked hard to get these genetics into
our pedigree cows.
Two years ago, I suggested to Guy Green that we start
a Polled Limousin UK Facebook group. Germany had
one, France and Spain also. I began tentatively and was
surprised at the amount of requests we had to join! We
now boast over 2500 members with more joining daily!
It became such a useful space to showcase polled stock
and also link with other groups around Europe. It’s all
a learning curve. Polled animals are successfully being
‘bred up’, crossing successful polled genetics with our
fabulous horned British lines to produce stronger and
stronger animals. Adding photos of homebred animals to
the Facebook group to show successes.
Other polled breeders in the UK are so generous with
time and expertise. I wasn’t born into a farming family
and have relied on the kindness and advice from
others and am excited to see polled Limousins within
the UK really beginning to grow and flourish. Moving
forward, I can only see polled Limousins increasing. It is
an interesting sub-section of the main herd book and
I would encourage all breeders to start a little polled
breeding alongside your horned cows. You may be
pleasantly surprised by the results and enjoy the process
as much as me!
140 | BRITISH LIMOUSIN CATTLE SOCIETY www.limousin.co.uk