Uniform golden orange Charolais calves fit for the store ring is what Rhys Anderson of Burnton, Laurencekirk, finds pleasing to the eye.
Rhys, alongside his wife, Hazel, runs 180 suckler Salers cows at Burnton and Nether Quithel, Stonehaven. The two farms total 880 acres, with Burnton having been owned by the Anderson family for almost 100 years, with an additional 210 acres of contracted arable land.
The whole herd is spring calving, and due to calve in March and April this year. Rhys moved over to fully spring calving five years ago, having been part of the farm profit programme that Thainstone mart offered with various focus groups and farm visits.
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“It was interesting to get different perspectives and it really highlighted the advantages of calving everything in one batch. We can solely focus on calving in the spring and are not having to make different diets for the back-end calvers and their offspring,” he said.
All cows will go to the Charolais bull for breeding store calves, while the heifers and a few of the best breeding cows go to a Salers bull for breeding replacements, calving down at two years old.
“The Charolais is the fastest-growing beef breed and they achieve a premium through the ring at Thainstone. Aberdeenshire finishers seem to favour the Charolais,” he said. “We were putting everything to the Charolais and keeping Charolais cross females – they were getting too much of the same, so we wanted to focus on a real good mothering cow, which is when we found the Salers.
“The Salers female is very milky and when calves have access to this from the word go, we find it stops a lot of problems later in life,” added Rhys, who also buys in around 12-15 Salers privately from the Livesey family and Jamie McIntyre for different blood lines.
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This helps to maximise the number of Charolais calves he can produce. The main focus now for these Charolais calves is selling store calves just under a year old through Aberdeen and Northern Marts, Thainstone.
Anything not fit for the store ring, as well as the bottom end of the Salers females and steers, will be finished on farm and sold to Scotbeef, Inverurie or McIntosh Donald, Portlethen.
“We should probably finish more cattle ourselves, but we simply do not have the shed space – we need store cattle away before calving commences. A lack of space is a disaster at calving time.
“With such a good trade for store cattle it makes it difficult not to sell them at that stage. We have never really been disappointed in their value, but of course we do still want our buyers to make something,” he added.
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Last spring, 114 stores left the farm to average 453.7kg at 361 days old, achieving a £3.14/kg live weight.
A top price of £1660 was paid for a pair of 488kg steers at a year old, with a few of the lighter stores (16) kept on grass through the summer to be sold in November for an average of £1533 at 18 months of age.
“Store trade at the moment is well up on the year so I am looking forward to selling my first consignment of 2024 in the next week or two,” he said. “Buyers are paying for every kg now and do want that heavier calf. We used to aim to sell calves between 400-450kg, but now if possible we keep them for a little longer and take them closer to 500kg, which is well worthwhile,” Rhys added.
Really aiming to improve the herd, Rhys weighs calves regularly to see where he could improve. This is now far easier through his all-new handling system which was installed last year.
The impressive set-up in a converted byre now contains a Big 8 hydraulic squeeze crush and Bateman race and forcing and holding pens. It was all constructed by Rhys and cattleman Frazer McGill over the wet harvest of 2023 and has made handling cattle a lot easier and safer.
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“A few years ago, I wanted to improve growth rates of the cattle and we weren’t sure how this could be done, so installing a system to make it viable was essential,” he said.
What Rhys did find was that with really milky cows and a home-mixed creep feed given from three to four months old, calves performed really well up to weaning. However, in the first month to six weeks of being housed, calves were not performing as well as they should have been. All calves are vaccinated against pneumonia pre-housing, backs are clipped, and they are fluked and wormed post-housing.
They all looked well and appeared to be settled and thriving but the scales showed disappointing gains. To help reduce stress from weaning, calves are now given easy wean nose clips, which naturally weans them off the milk before being separated – making the process far less stressful.
“You would never have believed the difference – the first night you walk through the shed it is silent. I was most impressed when we started using them and the performance after weaning has backed this up,” he said,
Cows graze the hill ground for as long as possible through the summer before coming onto forage rape, which is put in after winter barley and will then be housed prior to Christmas.
Cows are mainly on straw-bedded courts for comfort, with around half of the store cattle on slats. “We have not found either practice performing better, but with the number of regulations for slurry it does put us off having any more slats, although it is a big saving on straw,” said Rhys, who last year baled 2313 round bales for their own use.
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Burnton also grows 130 acres of winter wheat, 60 acres winter barley, 180 acres spring barley and 65 acres oilseed rape as well as letting out 50 acres for potato ground.
Of this, only 150 tonnes of barley will be used for feeding, with everything else sold.
Harbro nutritionist Alistair Stewart has been instrumental in the progress of the herd over recent years with technical help also from Jill Hunter. The diets for the cattle are made by Alistair, in the form of a TMR diet.
Calves get pit silage, straw, Harbro maxammon-treated barley (to get the protein into the barley) and minerals. Cows receive silage and straw with Super Suckler minerals and then three to four weeks pre-calving 300g of soya is added to the mix to really push the colostrum on the cows. It doesn’t grow the calf, it just helps the cow in preparation of rearing a calf. After calving their ration is really ramped up to push milk yield and prepare them for bulling again.
“Everything is fed through a mixer wagon so it is weighed every morning, so we can see that night if they are not clearing it up,” said Rhys, who gets contractors G and R Johnstone, Drumlithie, in to do two cuts of 90 acres of silage.
Last year, first cut analysed well at 35.2DM, 12.1P and 12ME, with second cut being a lot wetter than anticipated with 22.8DM, 13.5P and 11.6ME.
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Sticking with tradition, Rhys runs just three pedigree Charolais cattle now, as his great-uncle, the late Alex Anderson, was one of the first to import the big white French breed into the UK in 1965.
“It is an interest we take as a sideline. We don’t want to lose the herd because of the history, but ultimately the focus is on the commercials,” he said, having purchased a couple of heifers last spring from Allen Drysdale, Glenericht, which are due to calf in the coming weeks.
The majority of Charolais bulls are purchased from Stirling, United Auctions, with the most recent one, Glenernan Tyson, coming from W and N Milne, Strathdon, in October last year.
“Although we are having to keep the bull a bit longer before he goes to work, I find bulls are easier bought in October,” said Rhys, who is sourcing bulls with a good frame, size and confirmation.
“The main focus is still on the commercial herd, and I do always think it will be for me. Looking to the future, I would like to keep doing what I am doing and producing the best stock that I can.
“I look forward to my two boys Jamie (8) and Cameron (5) getting more involved with things. They both love the cattle and are getting to a stage where they can be safely involved.
“The Charolais breed has a strong future – it is in a really good place now having changed an awful lot in the last 15 years. The breed used to have connotations of bad calving, but calves are a lot more manageable now and are performing well as a breed.
“My concern for the industry is cattle numbers are continually falling. As a producer it is a good thing for me at the moment as it creates more demand. But there will come a point that there are not enough cattle to sustain the Scottish infrastructure of marts, abattoirs, hauliers etc. That is concerning. “Unfortunately, farmers have to take it as it comes, as there is a lot that is outwith our control, but we have to keep a glass half full attitude,” he concluded.
Farm Facts
History: The Anderson family came to Burnton in 1928.
Involvement: Rhys Anderson, with his wife, Hazel, and boys, Jamie (8) and Cameron (5). Along with one full time employee, Frazer McGill, who has been with the business for more than 10 years.
Livestock: 180 suckler Salers cows which mainly go to the Charolais bull for spring calving producing calves for the store ring.
On The Spot Questions
Best investment: Strautmann mixer wagon – Putting everything onto TMR diets has improved efficiency greatly.
Biggest achievement: I’m really proud of the year-on-year changes which I am making to the business, every little change makes a difference to our profitability.
Best advice: Look after your cattle and they will look after you. If you try to cut corners, it will catch up with you eventually.
Lifetime ambition: Like most farmers, I want to be able to provide a safe and viable future for my kids, and leave the farm in better shape that when I started. My wife insists I am going to retire at 65 but I’m not convinced!! I have a while till I reach that age though.
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