WHEN Limousin bull Glenrock Ventura arrived at Lord Halifax ’ s Garrowby Farm some years ago little was Clive Rowland to know how his then fledgling Garrowby Limousin herd was to become much bigger .

Last year , February 2020 , what Glenrock Ventura started was even further enhanced by the purchase of Ian Handley ’ s renowned Gunnerfleet Limousins herd .

Having taken over as farm manager in July 2000 when he had inherited 120 suckler cows that included a small herd of pedigree Angus along with Angus X commercial cows Clive had quickly found out that the herd wasn ’ t working .

‘ It was a struggle to sell pedigree Angus at that time and the commercial herd wasn ’ t the best , that ’ s why I looked at Limousin ,’ says Clive . ‘ We put a Limousin bull on to the commercials , bred up the females and kept them as heifer replacements .’

‘ We dispersed the Angus herd and with the money from that we bought better cows . About five years into being here I bought some pedigree Limousin cows and started our own Garrowby Herd of pedigree Limousins , running alongside our commercial herd .’

‘ My aim was to breed a bull or two to sell and maybe use within our commercial enterprise . I ’ d sourced bulls from different places , but then saw an article in the Limousin stud book about the Gunnerfleet Herd . I liked the look of the cattle , went over , met Ian and bought Glenrock Ventura . It was the purchase of him that truly started the herd . He was the rock of our herd and he ’ s a bull that lies deeply with me in where we have gone since then .’

Glenrock Ventura signalled more than just the start of Clive ’ s herd but also the beginning of a business and social friendship with Ian and the Gunnerfleet herd , that was to continue to this day , with the herd now based at Garrowby .

‘ I ’ d purchased numerous bulls from the Handleys since then ,’ says Clive . ‘ Most of

our commercial herd has Gunnerfleet in it in some way . I like the type of cattle and they suit our system .’

Clive was trying to get his commercial herd up to 200 cows . He ’ d put up a new building for the increased numbers and had been working at keeping heifers as replacements and increasing numbers gradually .

‘ I was using our own stock to up the numbers purely from the point of view of maintaining high health status , but it was taking a long time .’

‘ Ian knew what I was aiming to do , when he and his father had decided to sell their Gunnerfleet Limousin herd he came to me to ask whether I would be interested in buying the whole herd as that way it could stay together .’

Clive ’ s initial thought , given his knowledge of the Handleys and their herd , was that it would be too much for him to afford .

‘ I mentioned it to Lord Halifax , it was discussed and it was agreed that we would buy the herd and make the Limousins our main farming enterprise from then on .’

‘ We bought 50 cows , 16 young bulls , 13 maiden heifers , some recipients in-calf and a few stock bulls including Ampertaine Magnum who was initially bought for £ 70000 , and another Plumtree Fantastic , very influential in the Limousin stud book . We also bought semen rights to both . Ian and I both made similar valuations and we agreed a set price per animal overall .’

‘ Since then we ’ ve increased the pedigrees somewhat and we ’ ve bought some recipient females , Fleckviehs , lovely and quiet red and white milky cows that easily give birth to Limousin calves .’

Clive reports that the semen sales made in the past year and an increase in bull sales has shown their investment to have been a very wise move .

‘ If you want to keep in the top drawer of the game you have to carry on investing in top end bulls , but we are also

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