Monthly weighings of youngstock over the last two years have shown that heifers and commercial bullocks at Poldean, Wamphray, near Moffat have averaged more than 1kg daily liveweight gain while pedigree bulls have easily achieved 1.75kg.

Willie Davidson, who runs Poldean with his wife Jennifer and son Alisdair attributes the improvement to the switch from a pelleted feed in his complete diet feeder to a custom-made meal geared to optimising rumen function.

The Davidson’s farm almost 2,000 acres that climbs from 270ft to 1,760ft, running 300 cows, including a small number of pedigree Charolais alongside a majority of Salers, a third of which are now pedigrees.

The French Salers breed, which is reknowned for easy calving and good milk production, has been at Poldean since the early 1990s, but when the farm’s beef cattle and sheep were culled out in the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic the Davidsons had to re-establish their herd. This created the opportunity to purchase foundation stock from France, including the bull that was champion at the local show in the Salers region.

Source: stackyard.com