Moralee Herefords – a show herd that cuts the mustard on the plate

When the couple took over the 230-acre Eltringham Farm, at Mickley Square, near Stocksfield, south of the River Tyne, in Northumberland, they were looking for an easily managed breed which would fit in with their busy working lives.

“We did our research and the Hereford was the obvious choice for us – the main reason being their docility,” said Tom. “We wanted a breed that either me, or Di could go into a pen with on our own. It was something we wanted to do alongside our jobs as a hobby."

“The second benefit was the Hereford's ability to convert grass into meat and the fact they are much less selective. They do it on a forage-based diet."

That choice has proven to be the right one, with the elite cattle breeding showing through – winning accolades in shows and competitions and achieving top prices at sales. The herd is docile and easily managed and it provides quality beef for direct sale.

The Moralee herd is the current National Hereford Show Herd of the Year, an accolade it has held since 2019 and the last staging of the event pre-Covid-19 restrictions, when the herd also achieved Sire of the Year with the Danish bull, SMH Kingsize. Their home-bred bull, Moralee 1 Rebel Kicks, was also named joint Polled Bull of the Year.

The herd has won many prizes over the year Ref:RH300321195 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

The ease of management of the breed really came to the fore when Di gave up her job as an accountant in Newcastle, in October, 2018, to work with the herd full-time. She spends time on her own seeing to the docile cattle and preparing them for shows and sales when Tom is at work. He is a land agent with Northumbrian Water, covering an area from Berwick to Teesside, dealing with pipeline compensation agreements with private landlords.

The Moralee Hereford herd – named after Di’s maiden name and High Moralee where Di’s parents, Alec and Joan, had farmed near Wark in the Tyne Valley – was founded in September, 2011. The base handful of females bought from David and Kate Dickinson’s Mallowburn herd, at Catcleugh, have proved to be some of the herd’s most successful female lines, including the Lucy and Jolene families.

Herd numbers have now increased to 40 cows, with additions from Robert Wilson’s Romany herd, at Kelso, which were polled with bloodlines going back to the Canadian bull, Glenlees Storm. Two females purchased from James Graham’s Richmount herd, from Portadown, Northern Ireland, in 2013, have also proved to be great additions to the herd.

First and foremost, Moralee Herefords is a 'show' herd and only the best pedigrees are kept for breeding. “Our aim is to breed show-type stock. Everything has to cut the mustard and have show presence. An animal has to be correct on all four legs, we’re quite hard on that. We also want to breed for width which can be lost when breeding for calving ease," said Tom. “We look for a good top line and eye muscle – and we like nice markings."

The Harrisons are using a mix of both horned and polled genetics. “A lot of the foundation females were horned and we have crossed with polled bulls, and this has produced some of our best cattle, there is hybrid vigour. There’s a lot to be said for both types,” added Tom.

The Moralee herd is the current National Hereford Show Herd of the Year, an accolade it holds since 2019 and the last staging of the event pre-covid restrictions, Moralee 1 Rebel Kicks KS R12 was named Joint Polled Bull of the Year Ref:RH300321194 Rob

The herd is Five-Star Breedplan recorded, but Tom and Di don’t place great emphasis on figures. They don’t believe these alone give an accurate representation of traits as there are only 20% of herds recorded. They do try to breed for intramuscular fat, though, which Hereford beef is renowned for.

A big influence on the herd was the purchase of Coley 1 Pippa 356, from Heather Whitaker, Halifax. The Harrisons were attracted not only to her looks but her performance figures and breeding – as her dam, Frenchstone P1 Boo, was the 2013 Hereford Female of Year, Frenchstone P1 Boo, and Coley 1 Pippa 356 was by the much vaunted Australian-bred sire, Days Calibre.

Pippa excelled in the show ring, taking two breed championships in a row at the Northumberland County Show. As a two year old senior heifer, she was the 2017 Royal Highland Show breed champion, which made the top three in The Scottish Farmer Champions of the Decade competition held last year in the absence of shows. She also won a string of championships in 2017.

She continued her winning ways in 2018 with first calf Moralee 1 RHS Prince at foot, finishing the year with senior female and reserve 'Grand Female Champion' at the National Poll Show, being reserve Female of the Year in 2017 and 2018.

Possibly the biggest advancements in the herd’s breeding progress have been through herd sires – Cornriggs 1 Knightrider, bought from Harry Elliott, Cowshill, and the Danish-bred former stud bull, SMH Kingsize, the latter being Sire of the Year in 2019. Both have since been sold on.

“They were such fantastic stock bulls. Kingsize is one of those bulls you come across once in a lifetime. He clicked with every single cow in the herd and we never had a bad calf off him, despite so many variations in the type of female in the herd,” said Di.

Kingsize is the sire of the polled Moralee 1 Rebel Kicks, as well as winning numerous male championships, including the National Hereford Poll Show and also inter-breed success at the Royal Welsh Show, winning the overall native champion junior bull title. He was joint National Poll Bull of the Year and reserve overall Bull of the Year; and in the 'Hereford Champion of the World' competition he was reserve in Europe.

Vandal and Villan two of the bull calves sired by Rebel Kicks Ref:RH300321191 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

“We took semen off Rebel Kicks at Scawfell Genetics and it was sold at the 2019 Designer Genes sale for £85 a straw to a herd in Denmark. Semen sales was not something we had envisaged getting in to, but it is one of the best things we have done. The sales just took off last year,” said Tom.

“Hereford semen sales have been driven by what sires the AI companies buy and they aren’t buying pedigree bulls for the pedigree market. That is partly why Rebel Kicks semen has sold so well,” said Tom, who served for three years as a Hereford Cattle Society council member.

The best cow families have been flushed extensively and now the latest progress for the herd has been the birth of Rebel Kicks-sired embryos out of Moralee 1 Kylie and Coley 1 Pippa 356. Two bulls and a heifer were born in January and February from the Kylie flushing with a further two bulls and a heifer in March from Pippa.

Seven embryos produced four bulls, three by Kingsize and one by Knightrider, and three heifers by Kingsize last May and June from Kylie, Pippa and also Moralee 1 Kimberly. The Harrisons have successfully been using AB Europe’s in-vitro programme and have 60 embryos in store.

June born emybro calves from Moralee 1 Kylie Ref:RH300321184 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

“Last year’s embryo calves were just something else,” said Di. “When I went out to see them, I called it ‘my field of dreams’! I am also excited about the embryo calves born this year.” A dozen natural calves will be born this spring, along with 20 in the autumn.

Retained as a stock bull is Pippa’s first calf born in 2018, Moralee 1 RHS Prince and he is producing some great calves, both pedigree and commercial.

“Having the time off from showing cattle last year has given us time to re-focus our day to day running of the herd,” pointed out Tom. “We have continued the hard work. All cattle are halter trained and show ready and we have continued to promote the herd on social media.

"We have had a lot of interest from people who came to look at the cattle following social distancing requirements and we have sold a number of cattle off the farm, including four lots to start new herds in Wales, Scotland and England.

“We have missed, though, the opportunity that shows bring to promote our stock and measure what we breed against everyone else’s. There is also a lot of business done at shows and a lot of help and advice shared – as well as, of course, the social side of it.”

The highlight of 2020 was the Designer Genes Hereford sale, in Shrewsbury, in December, conducted by auctioneers, Halls, on line as a live auction, although all cattle remained at home. The September, 2019-born Moralee 1 Tommy Lad, sired by Cornriggs 1 Knightrider and out of the Kingsize daughter, Moralee 1 Ishbel, for 5000gns to Northumberland breeders, Neil and Emma Howie, at Chatton.

The Harrisons’ March, 2019-born heifer, Moralee 1 Kylie KS S10, sold for 6600gns, the second highest price for a polled Hereford. She is daughter of SMH Kingsize and out of Knight Rider daughter, Moralee 1 Kylie 2.

Show team heifers Moralee 1 Kathryn PR T15, Moralee 1 Kathryn PD T6 and Moralee 1 Pippa KS S11 Ref:RH300321189 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

Moralee 1 Kylie's emybro calves with their recipient mothers Ref:RH300321185 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

However, a horned heifer caught the eye of both of them and after heated bidding both on line and by phone, the Harrisons broke the UK and European record when they paid 10,000gns for Auckvale Curly 1831S. This 23-month old-heifer was bred in Co Durham by the Kemp family, by Auckvale King-Maker and traces back to the famous Curly family, coming in calf to outcross sire, Ervie Classic. “We both agreed we liked the heifer straight away – something that isn’t happened since we bought Pippa!” said Di.

There is a ready market for bulls for use in suckler herds in the region and Tom added that more producers are looking for easy to handle cattle with lower inputs.

Tom and Di took over the farm, which has 90 acres of contract-farmed arable land along with woodland, from Tom’s dad, Arnold, who had bought in store cattle to finish prior to his retirement. The village of Mickley Square grew on the back of coal mining and the Harrisons converted what they called the Old Potato House, a former mine office, into their home.

Home to Tom and Di Harrison and the Moralee Hereford herd Ref:RH300321197 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

The land is sand and gravel, which enables up to 40% of the herd – including most of the spring calvers – to be outwintered on poorer land, including on the former washing plants for the coal from the drift mine. Pastures are being re-generated with a clover mix.

Because the cattle are such good converters of grass into marbled beef, the Harrisons started a chilled boxed beef scheme, Moralee Hereford Beef, and are selling a steer a month. “Our boxed beef scheme is going so well. It gives us the opportunity to keep only the best for pedigree breeding, but it’s a bit of a challenge to make the decision in the first 28 days of the calf’s life,” said Tom.

The aim is for finishing off grass the following year at 15-18 months old at 600-650kg liveweight, with a 320kg carcase, which is cut up by butcher, WMH Farm Fresh Meats, at Haydon Bridge, Northumberland.

Heifers are bulled at 21 months to give them extra growth and to fit in with the system. The cows are outwintered in the pit heaps on silage and some straw to keep their condition down for spring calving, but calves are housed in their first winter, staying on their mothers until Christmas. They are given creep feed in the summer, then they are fed silage and a maintenance blend with most finishing off grass.

some of the young bulls that will be bound for sale privately and at auction later in the year Ref:RH300321192 Rob Haining / The Scottish Farmer...

The herd is in the Biobest High Health Scheme. It is TB 4 Johnes Level 1 and has been BVD accredited since 2015.

The couple are supported in their show team by good friends, Steven O’Kane and Helen Morgan, from Keadyview Livestock, Powys, Wales, who were in particular instrumental in the success of Moralee 1 Rebel Kicks, in 2019. Also, Tom and Di’s niece, Charlotte Anderson (16) and nephew, James Anderson (14), from Elsdon, Otterburn, are keen to help at shows and have become members of UK Hereford Youth.