PRODUCING top-end breeding cattle and sheep that regularly attract premium prices year after year, as well as finishing animals to a high standard is no easy task but it is a lot easier when you have built up a system based on easy calving bulls and low maintenance sheep.
It’s proving a winning formula for brothers, Colin and Graeme Smith, who along with Graeme’s wife, Julie and their sons – Ryan (21) and Lewis (17) – farm a 500-acre enterprise over three units at Towiemore, Drummuir, as well as renting a further 10,000-11,000 acres of seasonal rough grazing around Keith.
No strangers to the breeding cattle market at Aberdeen and Northern Marts’ Thainstone Centre, the family has built a reputation for producing the top priced lots at both the May and the September sales, as well as taking the championship for three years on the trot at the pre-show sale in the back end.
But while they regularly sell breeders for more than £3000, it’s their bumper average of £2500 – maintained for the last five years – that is impressive, as is the fact that regular customers come back, time and again.
While the business is home to 200 cows and heifers, they calve 90 mostly bought-in heifers from the middle of February onwards, to sell with calves at foot at the breeding sales at Thainstone, in May, with a further 65 bought-in heifers calving from mid-July onwards to sell in September.
Their ‘home’ 42-cow herd comprises 12 cows which calve in the spring and 30 in the back end, with the resultant progeny all finished.
Heifers for taking through to sale are bought as maiden heifers and are mainly Simmental crosses, with a selection of British Blue and Limousin crosses, which are bulled to a Limousin.

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The farm's own spring-calving cows which all progeny are finished on the farm

“The cows here are 97% Simmental, with all heifers put to the Limousin and the cows to the Charolais. We find using the Limousin on the heifers is better because not only does it give you a nicer, shapier calf to sell but it is easier calved than the Charolais, which is important for heifers,” said Colin.
But it’s the Charolais which they still believe is the best terminal sire for the cows, producing progeny that finish in a good period of time with the best weight gains on a home-grown ad-lib barley ration.
Furthermore, their Charolais cross calves consistently achieve R and U grades through Woodhead Bros, at Turriff, or Dunbia, Elgin.
They are, though, two completely different markets, with attention to detail in the breeding and feeding systems required at all times to ensure maximum returns.
Commenting on the breeding side of the equation, Colin said it’s the quality of the calf that often determines end prices: “We aim to try and breed the best calf possible. Buyers look at an outfit in a number of ways with some looking at the calf as a replacement female, the breeding potential of the actual heifer, or a combination of both!
“It is the calf that is most important, though, as that defines the breeding potential of the heifer.”
Calving beefy heifers causes few if any problems too, according to young Ryan who, after completing an HND, at Oatridge College, works full-time at home, mainly alongside Colin in the cattle enterprise.
“We find little difference in calving heifers compared to cows. As long as they get pre-calving minerals on the run up to calving, they will do the job well.
“Heifers also have tighter udders, therefore their calves find it easier to suckle compared to some cows which have bigger, looser bags and, as a result, their calves often need help.”
Diet also plays an important role in calving ease, with more straw added to the silage-based TMR ration during the winter, depending on heifer condition to ensure they don’t get too fat and avoid calves becoming too big.
But in contrast to most beef farmers who buy their bulls at public auction, the business prefers to buy theirs on farm.
“You just don’t get the same hassle if you buy bulls privately. We are able to go to the farm and see the bulls in their natural condition and see the progeny they have left, or the stock they have come from. Not only does it prove they are working but you are able to see the the end results,” commented Colin.
Managing calving is made easier by utilising modern sheds with self-locking yokes and spacious calving pens. Spring calvers are kept inside, often through to the middle of May and get to the grass before being sold at the end of the month.
That’s depending on the weather and grass availability, while those calving in July are out to grass as soon as possible. They are kept in small batches in fields for ease of management.
A month before selling the calved heifers, concentrate feeding is introduced to add that extra condition to the heifers, with the feed also aiding their handling ability too. The feed also helps to give the calves that extra shine.

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A selection of the Simmental cross autumn-calving heifers

With all progeny from the cows finished on the farm, last year’s autumn bull calves were kept entire and sold for bull beef due to having plenty home-grown barley left. That brought in some handy income too. Store cattle, mainly Charolais crosses, are also bought in from local markets to finish.
As well as maintaining a successful cattle enterprise, the Smiths run 1300 breeding ewes, consisting of 750 North Country Hill-type Cheviots and 550 Blackfaces which are bred pure, with Graeme and Lewis mainly at the helm, alongside young Charles McCombie, who helps for three weeks at lambing time, with local retired crofter, Sandy Rattray.
“We used to run Cheviots only but introduced the Blackface to help utilise the hill ground better,” said Graeme.
“Blackies are easier lambed and require very little feeding – only blocks and turnips are fed on the hill. They are kept pure too, so we keep the flock completely closed, breeding our own replacements and tups.”
“Our Blackie ewes are only off the hill for tupping and then go back on two weeks before lambing and stay there till the end of November.”
It’s pretty much a similar story with the Cheviots, although all tup lambs are rung, with stock tups purchased at Dingwall. Instead of finishing all the ewe lambs, the better end of Cheviots are sold as ewe hoggs at Stirling, in May, where last year the best sold for £94.
“We used to buy chunkier Cheviot rams, but we found they gave us a lot of difficulties at lambing time with hung lambs. Now, we look for longer, narrower tups which although don’t sell as well, are certainly easier to lamb.”
Some 230 Scotch Mule ewe lambs are also purchased every year at Stirling, Huntly and St Boswells. These are tupped to a Shetland for easy lambing and sold the following year as gimmers at Huntly and Thainstone, with the lambs finished on the farm.
But, with little premium for gimmers compared to ewe lambs in recent years – the family bought in their top lot at £152 last year and then sold them to average £145 for 150 sold (to a top of £155 for a pen of 40), they have opted this year to keep 70 of the Mule gimmers back to lamb at the end of March to the Texel. The aim is to sell them at Thainstone with lambs at foot.
The boys also bought 50 Half-bred ewe lambs at St Boswells, last year, to sell as maiden gimmers privately, to a regular customer in Ireland. And, as an experiment, 50 Down cross ewe lambs were bought to turn over at an early lambing sale at Thainstone, in August.
On the finishing side of the equation, 3000 store lambs and feeding ewes are bought in each year, meaning the farm finishes around 5000 head. They sell through Woodheads Bros, McIntosh Donald and Dunbia, where they mainly achieve R and U grades.
While Lewis spends half his week studying agriculture at Oatridge College, the other half is dedicated to his own Blackface flock, built up from five ewe lambs bought from Auldhouseburn in 2015.
These were flushed to provide 18 embryos, of which 13 held to provide 11 live lambs. The same five were flushed again as gimmers which again produced 26 embryos.

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Home-bred Blackie hoggs which will be retained for breeding or sold

But although the majority of Blackface stock tups are home-bred, last year a half share was bought in a Dyke tup with the Duncans, of Auchdregnie, Glenlivet. He’s a son of Starbuck and out of a show gimmer by the £19,000 Auldhouseburn, and was used for flushing and then onto the best hill ewes.
Needless to say, there’s never a dull moment at Towiemore, but with a constant eye on what is an ever changing, evolving market, you can be rest assured, the Smiths aim to achieve the best results for their business.