FAVOURED by many beef producers across the country as a maternal breed, the Simmental is the go-to female for suckler cow replacements.

But it's the ease of management, combined with rapid growth rates that allows the breed to mesh seamlessly with a busy arable enterprise on the edge of East Lothian.

That's certainly the train of thought behind the King family's decision to make the move from producing commercial calves at Wolfstar, near Tranent, to running a small herd of quality pedigree females to breed not only their own stock bull replacements, but also to offer pedigree bulls for sale.

"When I was in charge of the cattle side of things some 30 years ago, we used a mixture of Limousin and Aberdeen-Angus cattle crossed with a Friesian as our stock cow which were then put to the Simmental bull to breed our own replacements," explained Alex King who, together with son Ross, runs the 860-acre unit.

"We were looking for another breed of bull to cross with these cows and were ideally after a larger, stretchier type of Aberdeen-Angus and the Simmental fitted the bill.

"I believe it's the obvious beef breed for breeding replacements and was a no brainer for our type of land as it combines the growth rates offered by continental breeds with a great mothering ability."

The first pure female to call Wolfstar home was Woodhall Damara, which was bought at Hector Macaskill's reduction sale in 1997.

She was joined by a few more in the coming years but the first female to really mark the start of the herd was Starline Kutz 20, a Blackford Hawk daughter bought at the Starline reduction in Perth.

"She was the only Kutz female to sell from Starline and offered us the best of bloodlines at the time. Daughters have done really well in the herd and we'll be flushing three this year as we dip our toes in to the AI/ET water," said Ross, who added that one of her daughters, Wolfstar Tequila, went on to breed the 10,000gns Wolfstar Elusive sold at Stirling last year.

Alex continued: "At that time we were buying the top end of commercial Simmental bulls, so could justify a little more in order to invest in some of the top bloodlines with the view to breeding our own bulls."

The pedigree herd now numbers around 30 females but they are given no preferential treatment and are run very much on a commercial basis as both the cattle and arable businesses need to work together.

It's for this reason that the commercial herd of 150 Aberdeen-Angus and Simmental cross females calve outside during the spring, mainly in May when the majority of arable work is completed, as well as half of the pedigree females, while the remainder of the pedigree herd calves at the tail-end of the year.

This ensures that the pedigrees keep up with the commercials in terms of conception rates, calving rates and, of course, growth rates.

"We're very tight with the spring-calving period and bulls are only with the cows for nine weeks, and with heifers for six. Any which haven't settled in calf are culled, which has resulted in a weaning rate of 97% for the commercial herd," said Ross.

"But we're very ruthless when it comes to culling, particularly with the cross cows, and this has helped reduce our costs of replacements as the large, well-fleshed frame of the Simmy cross cow gives a big return while calving commercial heifers at two and pedigree heifers at two-and-a-half means there's very little put into the heifers before they offer a return."

Likewise, anything with bad feet, udder or temperament, or any females that have had eight calves are culled to add to the 'hassle-free factor.'

This, combined with a high health status - currently at Johne's Risk Level 1 and BVD clear, aided by no nose-to-nose contact in this predominantly arable area - has ensured a demand not only for pedigree bulls, but also for commercial females.

"We sell around 50 young heifers at 10 or 11 months straight off the farm to some of the same buyers each year and never need to advertise, purely off the back of our high health status," said Ross, adding that a number of these heifers go on to be used as recipients.

The cross bullocks pay their own way too as they are fattened on a bull beef system at 13 months and sold straight to AK Stoddart where they kill out at an average deadweight of 330kg.

But it's the sale of pedigree bulls that's the icing on the cake for the cattle enterprise at Wolfstar with sales to 10,000gns, and by investing in quality stock sires - such as the 12,000gns Dirnanean Vincent and the 11,000gns Team Celtic - the herd is going from strength to strength.

"You can never compromise on length," stressed Alex, pointing out that while they pay attention to EBVs, the guide is always the last thing they look at when considering new purchases.

"We always buy for length as when you receive payment based on deadweight, the end weight is important and length contributes a great deal. Fast growth rates are also important as well as the animal's natural fleshing ability to allow plenty weight gain leading to early finishing.

"It's for this reason that EBVs are always on our check list as we need the weight gain in those early months to produce our finished product. But you never can be too sure how reliable the figures are, so our judgement by eye counts for a lot.

"But then, birth weight EBVs can be very deceptive as Team Celtic has a very high birth weight EBV but it's all in his length as heifers are calving no bother to him. They've shown exceptional growth rates too as this summer, a Celtic son, Wolfstar Fearless, gained 2.8kg per day on grass alone!"

Ross added: "We keep an eye on bloodlines and calving figures too, with daughters' calving ease being more important than calving ease direct. A high degree of back fat is also important so that females work off their reserves during the winter on their diet of ad-lib straw and 2kg dark grains."

There will be four Wolfstar bulls heading to Stirling, three are by the Team Celtic bought at Stirling - senior bull Fearless as well as two juniors, Fly-half and Flying Scotsman which is a full brother to last year's Elusive - and another by Dirnanean Vincent in the shape of Wolfstar Figaro.

While the cropping and cattle business work together, the father and son duo still like to compare their relative bottom lines each year in an exercise which could benefit many in the industry.

"At the end of the year we always compare the accounts and it gets competitive!" said Ross.

"Each cost is analysed and figured out per hectare to see where we can make improvements, but there's always a big debate over the costs of straw and dung to either side."

As Alex points out, the workloads complement each other, but also rely on each other in this busy family farm in East Lothian.