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keep , easy calving , safe to work with and sustainable we made our decision to go into them .
“ We went to the inaugural pedigree sale of Beef Shorthorns at Skipton Auction Mart and it was there that we started with two in-calf heifers . One was carrying a bull calf . We were extremely fortunate that he was such a good animal and that he had taken on our prefix because it launched us impressively into the Beef Shorthorn world . He was Beautry Excalibur and won at the Beef Expo in Carlisle as a calf . We then bought more females the following year specifically for him .
“ We also managed to purchase some quality heifers out of Scotland from a guy who was dispersing 20 of his stock . Excalibur ran with all of those and we sold a selection of them with calves at foot the following year at Skipton , which did really well . We kept three of the original ones of those heifers .
“ The core of the herd goes back to those , as well as our two originals which came from Croxton Park . We also went on to buy a couple from Gerald Turton at Upsall , which the herd also goes back to .
“ It was Excalibur who set us on our way and he ran with ours as long as he could before we sold him to Sussex , but then he came back to us and was male champion at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2014 . He really was a fabulous bull .
Stuart and Gail still show , both their Beautry herd and their sheep , but Stuart says the Beef Shorthorn people are just such nice people .
“ The Beef Shorthorn Society is the friendliest society I ’ ve ever been involved with and I ’ m now on the board . Everyone gets on with each other and meeting up at shows and sales is meeting up with
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© Wayne Hutchinson
good friends . Many came to the reduction sale we held last year .
“ Our ideal number of breeding cows is 20 and we want to calve them at 2 years old . We calved 40 in spring last year and then sold 20 cows with calves at foot . We ’ ve calved 18 this year and we ’ ve 9 heifers coming into the herd . We have 8 heifer calves , so we will probably have another 8 for the following year . We don ’ t want to go too far , as we ’ re trying to take things a bit easier .
And you might just see Stuart back in the ring , with something he has high hopes for , at the Great Yorkshire Show this year .
“ You never like to get too carried away , but hopefully we ’ ve a smart bull this time . He won the Darlington Calf show in autumn and was Northern Area Club champion male there . We ’ ve kept him on with a view to taking him to Stirling next February . In the meantime , we ’ ve got him entered for Harrogate and the Royal Highland . If he covers himself in glory
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it would be a good advertisement . He ’ s Beautry Talisman . He ’ s just 12 months and will be going in as Junior Bull this year .
You may also see Stuart and Gail at the Royal Lancashire Show and Kilnsey Show that they did last year , but you ’ ll definitely see them at the National Beef Shorthorn Show at Westmorland County Show in September .
Stuart says he aims to sell 6 in-calf heifers each year , and anything that is not going to make a pedigree breeding bull
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will go as a store bull to Bentham Auction Mart at 9-10 months of age .
“ We ’ re very specific on anything we keep . It has got to be very good to stay at Beautry .
The Curries sheep showing prowess has much more history .
“ Dad got Texels originally in 1979 . We ran our Texel flock alongside the dairy herd , and we did very well showing . We held the world record price for a female at one time , 8,500 guineas at Chelford in the North West Texel Breeders Club Sale . We topped the averages at Lanark a couple of times with tup lambs in the mid 80s .
“ We had a bit of a quiet spell but then the enthusiasm got back going
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