Charolais genes are making it work for Graham Sinclair

High on the northern tip of mainland Scotland
Charolais genes are making it work for Graham Sinclair
Graham Sinclair and his family run a traditional
commercial herd on a total of 330 acres overlooking the sea on
the coast of Scotland’s most northeasterly county, Caithness.
They own the 110-acre home farm of mainly pastureland
established by his great-grandfather and 100 acres of
ploughable grass four miles away. They also rent a further 120
acres of rough grazing and ploughable land.
At any one time the Sinclairs run between 80 to 90 suckler
cows, mostly Simmental or Limousin cross, but over the past
two or three years, Graham Sinclair says they’ve been keeping
some of their own home bred Charolais cross heifers for
bulling, and the majority of their cows go to their two Charolais
bulls.
In the past all replacements, usually in the region of 8-10 each
year, used to be purchased externally, mainly from Mathers at
Kintore. “We were buying mainly Simmental cross heifers with
calves at foot however more recently we have tended to source
bulling heifers from Thainstone Auction Mart.”
Two years ago, we decided to get our own bull, for bulling
heifers, a Salers and are very pleased with the results.
“My father purchased our first Charolais Bull in the 70s and
we’ve never looked back, and since this time we’ve been using
Charolais bulls as our main sire. One of our current Charolais
bulls is a Gretna House bull purchased during lockdown and the
other is from Ben Harman’s Chesham Herd.
In the half century since that first purchase, the breed has
improved dramatically, and Graham Sinclair is among many
livestock breeders to pick easy calving as the most important
asset of the modern Charolais. “We are finding far fewer calving
difficulties in recent years, and this year all our cows were
calved without any vet intervention. That was with a calving
rate in the region of 96% and with several cows producing
twins.”
Keeping the condition of his cows and heifers right is one factor
in the Sinclair’s success. “Our priority is to keep our cows not
over fat, just fit and healthy for calving, and the high calving
percentage and multiples are I believe partly a result of that.”
Picking the right bulls is also critical. “I am not interested in
purchasing an extreme bull. I want a bull that appears to me
that it will not cause any calving difficulties. So, I pick what I like
on first sight and then look at the EBVs and if the two are not
compatible I go back to the drawing board.”
Easy calving is a dominant commercial benefit, but so too is
value. “I replace bulls every two or three years, but we look
after the bulls and with the Charolais I particularly like their
longevity. We have kept bulls up to 13 years old and one
Thrunton bull was 15 years old. If you look after your bulls,
they will look after you, so they represent good value for
money.”
Problem free calving is also vital for a farmer like Graham who
manages this time-consuming process single-handedly.
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“I am not looking for a tight calving, so we have a lengthy inside
spring calving which starts in earnest in March and ends with
the cows and calves being out to grass from mid-May onwards.
As I look after all the calving myself, I need to make sure that I
have the time and capacity to calve them and when they have
calved, we like to put them in a pen for a week where I can
keep an eye on them before they join the herd.”
Depending on the weather, the Sinclair cows come in from
mid-October to November and are kept housed through until
May. Calves are weaned a fortnight after they come in for the
winter when they have settled down, and they are fed a Harbro
Champion protein concentrate with barley and silage. “We
don’t actually weigh them, but they will be in the region of 260
to 280 kilos in the main with some up to 300.”
Graham keeps around three heifer calves each year, “but we
are very selective, and they have to be out of a good milky cow
so we only keep the very best.”
Once weaned he will start selling some of the stronger steer
calves, keeping the heifers until the September sales, and
selling all their stock through the Aberdeen & Northern Marts
Livestock Centre at Caithness.
£280.”
For the Sinclairs, farming at the furthest edge of the country,
the pressures of inflation have just the same effect as anywhere
else, and Graham is looking for optimum performance with
minimum inputs from his cattle.
“With the help of my two daughters, Sarah and Hannah, we
make all our own round bale silage on 110 acres of pasture
to feed the cows until calving but then they’re fed additional
barley and protein and mineral supplements. We tend not to
push them through the winters. We aim to minimise costs by
letting the grass do its work from the spring onwards but when
they go outside, they are fed barley from cattle troughs in the
field from about August onwards for the sales.”
Even with the prospect of a decline in feed prices this year,
those overheads represent the biggest challenge at the
moment to this dedicated Caithness livestock farmer, but
perhaps the Charolais performance is helping to keep the
balance in Graham Sinclair’s favour.
“I’m a great believer in the live auction mart system,” says
Graham, and it demonstrates another of the advantages he
believes the Charolais gives him. “I love their temperament,
even when we take the cattle to the market, they are quiet and
easily handled, and well-natured cattle tend to do well.”
This may contribute to the Sinclairs achieving “tremendous
liveweight gain” with their young stock, and a great year on
year results at the sales in 2023.
“At the first sale in March this year we sold a batch averaging
531 kilos at £3.12 a kilo, mainly to finishers, which gave us
an average per head of £1,660, well up on the previous year,
and in July a batch averaging 564 Kilos sold for £1,772. Our
heifers always do comparatively well when we sell them at the
September sale, and this year averaging 508 kilos the price was
£1513 per head, representing £2.98 per kilo, which was well up
on the last year. Having said that, our stirks were up £250 on
the year too, but the heifers outdid them with an increase of
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