PROCTERS LIMOUSINS, one of the best known herds in the UK, is to be sold, with the owner blaming the British Limousin Cattle Society's failure to get its house in order following the de-registration of Ballinloan-related pedigrees.

Businessman Tony Moores, owner of the 100-cow Procters herd, is dispersing it following the 'huge cost' to his business of the de-registration of 53 calves – 43 as a result of semen from Ballinloan Jaegerbomb, the bull at the centre of the allegations, and 10 by Gunnerfleet Mervin, a Jaegerbomb son which also lost his pedigree.

Mr Moores stressed that he was 'disgusted' at the way Ian Handley, who bought Ballinloan Jaegerbomb for use in his Gunnerfleet herd, has been treated by the BLCS.

Criticising the handling of the situation, which has been going on for more than two years now, Mr Moores told The Scottish Farmer that the society had not learnt the lessons from the Ballinloan saga, with cattle still able to get through the system with the wrong birth dates.

“The role of any society is to protect its honest members and I am appalled at the Limousin society’s treatment of Ian Handley who bought Ballinloan Jaegerbomb in good faith at Carlisle at an official society bull sale,” said Mr Moores.

“Ian is an honest breeder who happened to buy a bull with a false pedigree and the same could easily happen again and to anyone. Ian has finally sold the Gunnerfleet herd because of his treatment by the BLCS board and because of the lack of support he received from them.”

Mr Moores accused the society of not being consistent in enforcing its own rules and procedures over the years, and therefore failing to protect its 'honest' members.

It had, he claimed, turned a 'selectively blind eye' to pedigree abuses in the past, in effect encouraging the misreporting of birth dates to enable breeders to compete at the bull sales, disadvantaging breeders who recorded accurate birth dates.

“The BLCS is more concerned about protecting its own reputation and its professional liability rather than conducting a rigorous and objective clean up. It also continues to protect people implicated in the past maladministration,” he added. “The society has to come clean about what happened all those years ago and it has to apologise to its innocent members. I have the utmost personal regard for the current chairman, Michael Cursiter, but he needs additional professional help.

“In the meantime, I do not wish to be associated with a society that has already cost me a great deal of money,” he concluded.

Adding to the complications of the Ballinloan case is the fact that the first batch of bull and heifer calves from Jaegerbomb were allowed to be sold at Carlisle in February 2019. Questioned over the society's decision to permit that, Mr Cursiter said: “We responded to the information we had at the time and legal advice. We didn’t knowingly do anything wrong, as at the time questions were being asked, we found the parentage to be correct.”

Regarding the falsification of pedigrees and ‘corruption of birth dates,’ Mr Cursiter said it was impossible for him to comment under the current circumstances.

Other information provided to The Scottish Farmer suggested that several other bulls from previous society sales – dating back as far as 2003 – have been knowingly sold with 'problem' pedigrees, including Ballinloan Rascal, Sunshine, Inch, and Jericho.

Inch was sold at a society sale in May, 2014 for, 3900gns, despite known issues with its dam; Jericho, which realised 18,000gns at Newark, was another that sold with maternal question marks; and Jericho was later one of 62 Ballinloan cattle that were deregistered in June, 2019.