Breeding for that special animal at Walkerdyke
HAVING the commercial characteristics in mind when producing both cattle and sheep for finishing, always pays off the Cunningham family who run Walkerdyke Farm, based in Strathaven, Lanarkshire.
Their whole farm operation is as self-sufficient as possible, with all work completed in house from ploughing, baling to all stock work, by the father and son duo. It is very much a team effort, with David senior and his wife, Fiona, along with their son, David (24), who is having more of a say in the business in recent times.
On the sheep front, the family try to breed all their own replacement gimmers – this year there are 140 to run on – of which half will be Cheviot Mules and the remaining will be Beltex cross Texel crosses. The majority of the Beltex and Texels will go back to the Beltex terminal sire, with the top end Texels going to the Texel.
Cheviot Mules will all go to the Texel tup to produce that high demanded ewe lamb. Further to that, there are 1520 Charollais crosses which go to the Suffolk purely for those heavyweight showy lambs.
Lambing kicks off in the middle of March for the pure ewes, with the commercials holding back until the middle of April all lambed inside. The ewes will be pre housed a fortnight prior to lambing and once lambed they will be paired up and outside the following day.
By achieving a 180% lambing percentage, triplets will occasionally be left inside, although they try to twin them on where possible. By feeding them hard on ForFarmers Ewbol Gold 18+ Levucell, bought through Galloway and Macleod, the triplets are often big enough to make twinning on that bit easier.
“We swear by the feed, it has been working for a number of years now and the ewes always seem to have plenty of milk on them,” said David senior, with singles not given any feed apart from lick tups.
If that doesn’t keep them all busy enough, they have increased their flock to 380 ewes which includes 50 pedigree Beltex ewes and 10 Blue Texel ewes.
The Beltex were imported
in 1993 for crossing with the gimmers to make lambing easier, and thereafter David sourced females to build up his flock. This year there are 32 gimmers to be retained for breeding.
“We stopped flushing around seven years ago and managing to get 32 gimmers to keep for breeding that are like peas in a pod, without a C-Section among them this year – we have no notion to go back to flushing. The Beltex have always been ringing the bell for us, and if it isn’t broken, don’t change it,” said David.
All Beltex tups are targetted at heading to Kelso Ram Sales as shearlings having been used as lambs at home. This year, the flock sold 12 shearlings to a top of £2300 having levelled in at
£1040.
“There is no bigger advert for these tups than our show commercial lambs and producing the top end of the prime lambs every week at Lanark. It means we know what is breeding well and what customers are looking for,” added David, with 95% of the stock being marketed through Lawrie and Symington.
Last year’s lamb crop was fattened off of the farm and sold for £139 apiece and having already had 140 lambs away this year, there are 248 now on hoppers to get the final ‘polish’.
Lambs will be on grass all summer before going on to hoppers at the end of October for that final finish. There is a demand for the heavy 45kg plus, but the
lighter Beltex type weighing 39kg are just the right job for the export market.
“We love producing that right wee shapey lamb for the export market, with an extreme carcase there is no waste due to the pure muscle,” said David, emphasising that it is all about the pence per kg.
Additionally, there are 10 Blue Texel ewes which are ran purely commercially for the main reason to get that highly marketed black lamb. The Cunninghams found that there was a demand for the females but not for the tups when starting out in the Blue Texels, so started castrating all the lambs.
These types of black lambs work well for the winter shows, breeding these right showy shapey lambs. The father and son duo have six lambs entered for the Scottish National Fat Stock Club’s Premier Meat Exhibition and eight pairs of lambs, one home-bred butcher steer and one young farmer’s calf entered for this year’s LiveScot.
“I have always loved both events since I was a wee boy. I loved watching the deckers load Edinburgh to head down to Smithfield. It wouldn’t be without the encouragement of my late father, also David and Murray Hardie of ScotBeef,” added David snr. He first exhibited at the events in 1995, won the live section at PME that year and continued to show ever since.
In 2000, David exhibited five carcases at the Festival of Meat in London and managed to come home with the reserve champion heavy weight bullock carcase.
He was also honoured to be asked to judge the sheep young handlers a LiveScot in 2018.
Son, David, added: “We are gearing up for LiveScot again and it is always one to look forward to on the calendar. It is great to showcase our industry and see all the quality stock in the same venue.”
They also support three local shows, Strathaven, Chapelton and East Kilbride, along with venturing along to Muirkirk this past summer.
“It is really a time element that stops us from showing. I would love to get back into showing and take the commercial lambs to the Royal Highland Show, these are my passion and trying to produce those right shapey lambs from our Beltex tups,” said David.
He is also committed to his Young Farmers’ sheep and cattle dressing being a member of Avondale YFC. Having won Lanarkshire lamb dressing for a second year, David has now qualified for the National prime lamb dressing which is again being hosted at LiveScot. David has been dressing lambs with Jordan Cuthbertson for five years.
No stranger to the top tickets on the cattle side, he has also won the Young Farmers’ Lanarkshire cattle dressing this year.
On the cattle front it is again the same motto that the duo are aiming for that butcher animal. The 50-cow herd will all be finished again through Lawrie and Symington, on a LS Smellie and Son’s fat supplement. Back in the 1980s and ‘90s cattle were marketed through the late Jim Bennett, of Strathaven market and the heavier types went to Murray Hardie, of ScotBeef.
“We are purely working with Limousin crosses and British Blues as that is what produces the quality carcase butchers demand. We want a real big shapey meat machine that will kill out well,” said David, with 100 cattle finished yearling.
David senior added: “We are trying to breed the carcase that will suit the live ring and deadweight, selling both ways works well and there is room for both routes live and dead.”
Along with the 50-cow herd the team will buy in around 50 suckled calves a year to fatten, which are housed on slats or straw bedding through the winter and on grass through the summer.
“It is important to have a steady income and level out the workload for the year,” added David, with cattle aiming to be sold around 18-months of age to 21-months.
Calving takes place all year round to ensure that constant cycle of cattle into the market. There is also not the capacity to house everything all at once. Cattle are fed round bale silage due to the ground at Walkerdyke, it suits the system.
“With the farm being at full stock capacity it is very intense however it requires keeping the ground right, we believe if we look after the grass land, the grass land will look after us. We have a ploughing and reseeding rotation with plenty dung and lime applied.”
“We have got to improve our land and stock to work as hard as we can to continue to provide food for everyone’s plates,” concluded David.