Who said you can't have your cake and eat it?

- You can with the Simmental, according the team at Tillyeve, who believe the breed is your genuine multi-purpose animal boasting natural mothering attributes and the ability to produce progeny with some of the highest growth rates.

"The Simmental has always been the best suckler cow breed and it still is," said Craig Bruce, who together with his wife Alison and son Tom, farm at Tillyeve, Ellon, alongside, Craig's brother Kevin, his wife Fiona and son, Gary.

"Simmentals and Simmental crosses produce some of the fastest growing cattle - and without creep feeding whilst suckling.

"Our spring-born calves don't get creep feed until September just before they are about to be speaned and they'll still produce the same daily liveweight gains as Charolais cross calves," added Craig.

As a result, the Bruces always look to buy Simmental or Charolais cross calves when buying 30-40 stores to finish every year, with both lots finishing the quickest and with U and R carcase grades.

No strangers to the breed, the family first introduced a Simmental bull to their then North Devon suckler cow herd in 1978, when a Ravensworth bull was purchased for their farm on Orkney.

Almost 40 years on and just as enthusiastic about the breed, the family has not only increased suckler herd numbers but also introduced a pedigree Simmental herd coming under the Tillyeve prefix.

Having moved from the 150-acre family farm on Orkney in 1986 - along with father and mother, Charlie and Marjorie Bruce, who still help out with the day to day running of the business - suckler cow numbers have steadily increased to 80 with a further 20 pedigree females also run.

Both herds have more or less been built up from home-bred females too with the result, these two hi-health units are accredited for BVD and Lepto and boast an enviable Level 1 reading for Johnes.

Not surprisingly, all cows are bulled to a Simmental, with an Aberdeen Angus used on the heifers - which calve at two years of age - for ease of calving and to breed replacement females with additional hybrid vigour to put back to the Simmental.

With the exception of home-bred replacement heifers and a handful of cross-bred heifers sold privately for breeding, all cross-bred calves are finished on farm.

Normally, stots reach 740kg at 20-months of age while the heifers are nearer 660kg at 18months, selling through Scotbeef at Inverurie.

Admittedly, the Angus crosses finish at slightly lighter weights, but, there is very little difference in the end price of the two crosses due to the 10p per kg Angus premium.

Finished prices to date this year have hit a healthy £1580, which when based on home-grown feeds of barley and oats from the 200 acres of malting and feed barley and oats, grown every year on this 540-acre farming business, all helps ensure the commercial cattle enterprise pays its way.

Add to that the fact that both the cross and the pedigree cast cows can be finished to big weights off grass at up to £1200 through Thainstone Centre, and margins are bolstered further.

But, it is the high health status of the herd, and natural fertility of the breed, which is proving key to overall margins, with last year, witnessing no fewer than 10 sets of twins of which five were reared on their mothers at grass with additional creep feed only.

More importantly though, with cows proving easy to calve, they come to the bull and hold to him soon after calving.

As it is, the majority of cows in both herds are sold looking fit and well at 10-11 years of age having produced eight or nine calves. It's not as if they're expensive to keep either as they have access to silage and straw only during the winter time.

The pedigree Simmentals which stem back to only a handful of purchases in the early 1990s to include Earl Park Princess; DeLaval Tilda, a couple of Treetops heifers and a Bruchag heifer, are also helping to boost margins.

While many bulls are sold privately every year, the best are sold at Thainstone, which in the past have peaked at 8000gns for Tillyeve Blockbuster.

Reserve champion at the pre-sale show, he was a son of the 10,000gns stockbull, Kilbride Farm Vernon, which is still going strong as an eight-year-old bull.

Tillyeve also triumphed at this year's Aberdeen Spring Show at Thainstone, producing the Simmental champion in Tillyeve Eamon which went on to sell at 6000gns while another made 3000gns. Both were sons of the AI sire, Curaheen Apostle.

Other stockbulls which have made their mark over the years include, Tintoside Viking which was bought in the 1980s and put an extra £100-£150 per head onto the value of the cross calves, with the 4200gns Blackford Navigator working well in both the cross and pedigree herds and lasting for a good nine years

In contrast to many cattle breeders who are always striving to improve individual characteristics within their breed, the family believes the Simmental continues to produce the ideal balance between maternal and terminal sire genetics.

"There is no reason why the Simmental cannot remain a multi-purpose breed provided the breeders continue to breed the right type of bulls for the commercial market," said Craig, who attends to the bulk of the cattle work, while Kevin looks after the 50-ewe Tillyeve Suffolk flock.

Tom on the other hand is at Robert Gordons University in Aberdeen studying mechanical engineering and Gary is a product manager with ACT.

"We couldn't get a better breed or cross for our mixed arable/livestock system here.

"The females produce some of the best performing calves which finish to big weights with U and R carcase grades, and some of the milkiest home-bred replacement females that are capable of calving at two years of age and still last into double figures," he said.

"I know, I always look to buy and produce good working bulls that are good on their legs and cattle that last.

"We've got one cow here still going strong and she was born in 2001, but then our stock bulls regularly last eight, nine, 10 years of age. You really can't ask for more than that in a breed" concluded Craig.