Robert Benson Agricultural Correspondent Yorkshire Post,

The Simmental breed of cattle, bred in Britain for more than 25 years, has established itself as one of this country’s premier beef breeds, thanks to its excellent beefing qualities. This is no more evident than on a North Yorkshire farm that runs both pedigree and crossbred cattle. The commercial herd supplies beef for sale in an on-farm shop which also offers cuts of lamb produced from a flock of Suffolk cross breeding ewes.

From left, Philip, Anne and Brian Wise, amongst some of their Swaleside herd of pedigree Simmentals. (Credit – Gary Longbottom, Yorkshire Post)

Hall Farm, at Skipton-on-Swale, near Thirsk, is run by Brian and Anne Wise and their son, Philip, and is home to the Swaleside herd of pedigree Simmentals, formed in 1989. The herd now totals 18 pedigree breeding females. The mixed farm, bordering the River Swale, runs to 300 acres of land owned by the family and 160 acres of adjoining rented land. Brian Wise, 49, moved there with his parents, Richard and Dorothy, at the age of four from a family run farming business, at Hutton Moor, near Ripon. He and Anne took over its running when his father retired ten years ago.

The farm’s spring-calving commercial beef enterprise consists of 40 home-bred Simmental cross cows which are put to a Simmental bull. All bull calves - around 20 a year - are sold at a year old through Thirsk market, weighing between 560kg-580kg. They single suckle their mothers at grass during the summer, are weaned at the end of October and then finished intensively in straw yards on a home mix ad-lib ration, consisting of home grown barley, peas, lupins and a bag per tonne of a combined protein balancer, plus minerals.

The heifer calves suckle for the first summer. They are also weaned at the end of October and during the winter get silage and a small amount of the home mix ration. Each spring, eight or so replacements are retained which go to the bull at 15 months of age and the remainder are summered at grass. Some are ready for slaughter in the autumn and the rest are housed for finishing at 550kg at 16-20 months of age. All the beef cattle and lambs sold through the farm shop are slaughtered and cut up by retail butcher, Anthony Rogers, who runs his own slaughterhouse, at Masham.

Their pedigree Swaleside herd is this year’s overall winner of the Farmway Trophy for heading the North East Simmental Club’s Herd Competition after topping the large herds section.

Over the years, the Wise family have also bought females from the Revelex herd in Cambridgeshire, Georgefield at St Boswells in the Scottish Borders, Gretna House at Gretna Green, and a number of females and a bull from Gerald and Morag Smith, owners of the Drumsleed herd, at Aberdeen. Brian Wise said: “Except for buying the odd stock bull we now try to keep a closed herd as much as we can. Our chief stock sire in the pedigree herd is now the two-and-a-half-year-old Drumsleed Missile, while on the commercial cattle we are using the home bred Swaleside Nightrider and Strathisla Jupiter which we purchased from AJ Morison in Perthshire. He is five years old and was previously used in the pedigree herd “We ourselves sell about five or six breeding bulls a year and a few females privately, with an odd one or two at the Carlisle sales.”

Arable cropping at Hall Farm this year has consisted of 150 acres of winter wheat, 28 acres of winter barley for feeding to the cattle and sheep, 20 acres of the spring sown variety hopefully going for malting. 30 acres of winter oats have also been grown for milling alongside 30 acres of Espace peas, for animal feed, and ten acres of lupins also for inclusion in the home-mix ration. Ten acres of fodder beet are also being grown for stock feed, while the farm carries a quota for 20 acres of sugar beet which will go to British Sugar’s York factory for processing. The remaining 130 acres is down to permanent grass. The 160 January lambing Suffolk cross Scotch Halfbred ewes are put to Suffolk tups, with their lambs finished at 40 kg liveweight for sale mainly at Thirsk Auction Mart. A small number are retained for sale through the farm shop, alongside the beef.

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