A strong year of performance for British Simmental has seen registrations and birth notifications rise just shy of 1000, or 15% on the year and pedigree sales totalling £2m.

Figures from the British Simmental Cattle Society show total registrations and birth notifications for the year ending June 30, 2022, totalled 7388, up 960 on the same time last year.

Sitting alongside these figures is a similarly strong performance at the point of both commercial and pedigree sales and which has seen official Society pedigree sales in the same period nudge through the £2m mark to gross £2,003,927.

In the course of the year, the breed enjoyed some record sale averages and clearances, most notably at Stirling in February when 89 bulls sold to a new record average of £6835.

In a new sale fixture introduced to ‘grow the reach of the breed’, the Next Generation sale of females and weaned calves at Carlisle in December saw a top price of 16,000gns, with heifer averages of £4396, and bull calf averages of £6174.

Pedigree registrations increased by 13.5%, with birth notifications enjoying a 19.8% increase.

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Society president Stewart Stronach, Keith, Banffshire, welcomed the improvement and added: “Simmental females are naturally efficient, healthy, easy to manage, and just full of milk. Adding value to any cross, they are maternal mainstays of the commercial suckler herd, can calve at two years old, and can wean calves at 50% of their bodyweight at 200 days.”

“In 2021 AHDB confirmed Simmental as being the leading continental beef breed for age at slaughter, and this couples with Simmental-sired progeny being fast growing, with terrific weight for age and leaving a high yielding, profitable carcase.

"These are the natural attributes and efficiencies of the modern British Simmental that are driving demand, forging a profitable commercial future in an industry with a higher cost base, and meeting the ‘green’ challenges of reducing beef productions carbon footprint.”

“We welcome these improved registration and sale figures, and collectively our focus will be to continue to work hard and provide commercial beef producers with future fit, profitable dual-purpose Simmental genetics.”