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Sale in Carlisle . We are also hard on them , like I am with all my breeding males whether cattle or sheep . If I wouldn ’ t put a tup or bull on my own animals then they go down the road , that ’ s the best thing I can say about our quality .
Beef Shorthorn cattle became Ed ’ s favoured breed when Newton Grange came on board .
“ When we took over Newton Grange it had been a dairy farm and had been all set up for cattle and so I thought I ’ d got to go for it . Sheep had been the only farming I ’ d ever really done before . I looked around , deciding on which breed to go for and a good friend of mine , who I grew up next door to , was a Limousin breeder and knew a lot about them , but I wanted a local breed .
“ There were some really good cattle around in that period of 2011-13 and Shorthorns stood out for me . We bought our foundation herd from Lowther and Chapelton Shorthorns and we now have a suckler herd of 70 cattle , not all pure Shorthorns , and buy in stock bulls , while also doing a little bit of AI . A purchase we made out of Stirling Bull Sales of a Castlemount junior bull nailed the foundation of our herd .
“ After starting with the pedigrees I then bought 20 threequarter Aberdeen Angus cows and crossed them with the Shorthorn bull keeping all replacements of the cross , and bought bulls to go on them .”
“ We grew the Shorthorn herd to 60 and a few years later we bought 20 more Angus X Shorthorn heifers . We had an Angus bull at this time and crisscrossed our breeding with Angus or Shorthorn and that worked really well for us . We got to 120 cows about three years ago and by then there were a lot of older cows and cows that weren ’ t performing , so we dropped back a number .
“ Martin had said we had quite a few Shorthorns that weren ’ t doing what we needed them to do , so we cut them back
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to 30 and then we dropped the black cattle down to 15 . At that point we looked a bit low on cattle .
Ed points to finding a successor that was just as good as his initial Castlemount bull hasn ’ t been easy .
“ We ’ d done very well with him and I couldn ’ t find a bull to replace him . Also , the Shorthorn Society seemed to have gone in one direction and the cattle I ’ d bought didn ’ t seem to be the cattle people wanted .
“ However , I found I was able to put 9-14 month old cattle through Leyburn livestock market and get good money rather than putting them through at 24 months plus , which doesn ’ t work for where we are . If you put in a really good fleshy beast that ’ s not far off continentals and will turn around quickly and still has the attributes of the pure Shorthorn it works . You don ’ t want to be hanging around too long and the Shorthorn ’ s fleshing ability is incredible when you get the right ones .
“ We usually calve March and anything here wants to be gone by January to March at between 9-13 months old . They do well and go to finishers . This year as another experiment we ’ ve put a lot of the Shorthorns with British Blue and Limousin . Myostatin is another area of Ed ’ s interest . “ A lot of our cattle have a single carrier of Myostatin , which we ’ re quite interested
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in . We ’ ve now matched the bulls and tested all cows and we are now producing tremendous calves , proper show calves . “ The reason for doing it is that I don ’ t want store beef only reaching 600lbs at 12 months , that ’ s no good to me . They have to be 1000-1200lbs so with that extra carcase , if a cow can pass that flesh ability and has the milk , that ’ s giving us eye appeal . Farmers and buyers want to look at something and see that they can go on to finishers at 450 kilos ( 1000lbs ) for 2-3 months . It ’ s all about profit . And how you get there while also making sure your animals are happy .
“ Of our 70 sucklers , 35 are pure Beef Shorthorn . Only 10 of the pures went to a Shorthorn last year , only the very best went . From last year ’ s crop we kept 10 uncut bulls which we then tapered down to three .
Ed has had success in the sale ring in Stirling . A couple of years ago he sold Rookwith Marvellous at 20,000 guineas . The most he has spent on a bull is 11,500 guineas .
“ It ’ s a while since we ’ ve had to find a good bull ,” says Ed .
Martin began working with Ed seven years ago with Heather arriving last year .
“ It ’ s just the three of us ,” says Ed . “ And it works very well . Heather does the accounts as well . I ’ d rather get on a quad and get out . We have a good dynamic
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and , like me , Martin is not interested in cereals , so we ’ re now all livestock .
When Ed was a young lad of around 10 years old his parents lived at Norwood Edge above Otley . Ed wasn ’ t from a farming background , although his mother ’ s family farmed at Driffield .
Ed wanted his own sheep and started with some Jacobs before moving on to Hebrideans . He admits to having been bitten by the showing bug too , taking sheep to the Great Yorkshire Show and others , but that was it for his farming dreams for a good few years as he committed himself to the family business in the motor trade until his late 20s .
“ Dad and I had always talked about how we ’ d love to get a farm at some point . I ’ d been at agricultural college at Cirencester for a short time before joining the family business and farming hadn ’ t been an option at the time , but land came available and I was keen to have a go .
Ed is married to Chloe and they have a son Max ( 9 ). Ed ’ s dad is Andrew and Ed says special mention must go to his mum Caroline , as well as his dad .
“ Mum is just tremendous at lambing time and dad is a hero , constantly mucking out and putting up pens . The business is a family partnership between me and dad .
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