David Dascombe

When farmer’s son David Dascombe from Wootton Courtney, on the edge of Exmoor, struck up a friendship at school with butcher’s son Simon David, little could they have know that it would lead to their families building a highly successful beef finishing and direct marketing relationship.

Renowned quality butcher, Gerald David, has expanded from one shop to five over the past decade, and the farming unit of Bruce Dascombe and family has grown as well to 1300 acres as they "try to keep up with the extra demand."

Bruce Dascombe with wife Rose and sons David and Mark run 350 spring calving suckler cows and finish 700 cattle in total in a year.

All cattle are housed for the final two-month finishing period, irrespective of time of year and 70 acres of maize silage play a fundamental part in the ration fed during this time. It is David Dascombe who calculates the diet where the maize is mixed with grass silage and protein supplement and fed out of a feeder wagon.

Improved pasture rising onto Exmoor

TEMPERAMENT IS KEY.
Simmental cross cows play a growing role in the suckler herd, and this started when Bruce purchased a bunch of heifers destined to be finished. However, they appeared "too good an opportunity to miss as breeding cows" and so were calved down to an Angus.

The superb temperament of these heifers proved to be a critical factor in the decision to increase the number of Simmental cross cows in the herd. At calving time throughout April and May, the herd is inspected every two hours and the ease of management of both cow and calf is a great benefit to the Dascombes as cow numbers have increased in line with the growing farm size. Suckler replacements are now purchased at any stage from bulling heifers to cows with calf at foot, depending upon the market.

Grassland management and quality of grazing are important factors and Bruce Dascombe describes how much the "cattle love the 40 acres of hill reclaimed in the late 60s, where the air is so fresh and the clover sweet."

AN INJECTION OF GROWTH & FRAME.
The Simmental influence in the suckler cows has provided increased frame and daily liveweight gains. Prior to this Bruce Dascombe was finding that progeny from his native breed based cows were growing rather slowly and "spending too long on the farm." 0rginally, the emphasis had been on more native bloodlines because the demands of Gerald David’s traditional butchers shops are for smaller carcase size.

Yard finishing gives consistency at a yunger age from Simmental reared progeny

To hit this specification Bruce Dascombe introduces creep feeding in early September and cattle out of the Simmental cows are kept going from weaning, the aim is to finish the steers at 14 to 15 months old. Not only is this good practice in terms of efficient output per animal, but it is providing the added bonus of getting cattle through the finishing yards quicker. This is an important objective as the biggest constraint on the continuing growth of the business is that all the buildings suitable for the ‘yarded finishing’ regime are being fully utilized.

Having seen the way the Dascombe family rise to every challenge, and take advantage of very shrewd store purchasing through the livestock market to top up their finishing numbers with the right sort of cattle, there can be little doubt that ways will be created to keep the flow of quality beef into Gerald David’s shops in the west country.

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