The 7,000-acre Balavil Estate, near Kingussie, will one day be home to some of the best-producing pedigree Aberdeen-Angus cows and Blackface and Cheviot sheep.
That’s the plan of Hannah Heerema, who alongside husband Eric, bought the estate in April 2015.
The couple, who have been married for three years and have two young children, run UK sparkling wine company Nyetimber.
An Aberdeen native, Mrs Heerema is the daughter of singer Fiona Kennedy and businessman Francis Clark.
She said her long-term plan is to create a “modern and sustainable Highland estate” with farming a key part of that plan.
The bulk of the land on the estate is rough grazing hill ground, with around 450 acres down as permanent pasture and 400 acres as forestry.
The couple have been quick to start plans to improve the estate and build their pedigree livestock empire, with estate manager George Pirie spending more than £180,000 on Aberdeen-Angus cattle at the recent Blelack herd reduction sale in Stirling.
Bidding on behalf of the Heeremas, Mr Pirie paid a breed record price of 35,000gn for seven-year-old cow Blelack Lady Eraline. Her bull calf sold separately for 10,000gn.
Mr Pirie continued his bidding and bought a further 25 lots, including the two other top-priced animals at the sale.
Mrs Heerema said: “Our main focus is building up an Aberdeen-Angus herd. The cows we bought last week are the foundations. We really looked into what would suit the land at Balavil and we quickly realised that the Aberdeen-Angus is ideal.”
She said recruitment was under way to find a pedigree stockman and her aim was to create a “world-class herd” of terminal sires and eventually females for other breeders. The herd prefix is Balavilhouse.
Purchases at other sales, including the Logie herd reduction, have created a herd of 38 cattle.
When asked about the record-priced Lady Eraline, Mrs Heerema said the cow “really stood out” on a visit to Blelack Farm, at Aboyne, prior to the sale. “She is a great example of the breed,” added Mrs Heerema.
The long-term plan is to employ between 10 and 12 people, including three on the farm, and head gamekeeper Llwyd Humphries recently joined the team.
At present, the sheep enterprise comprises 400 Blackies and around 180 North Country Cheviots. Mrs Heerema said she hoped to increase Blackie numbers to around 600 and said the main aim was to produce “top-end tups”.
So what next for the couple and their precious Aberdeen-Angus cows?
Mrs Heerema said embryo transfer would play an important role in building up the herd numbers and in future a small herd of Black Galloway cattle will be established on the higher ground.
A stock bull will be sought next year and it is hoped some of the first Balavilhouse calves will make their show debut at the 2017 Black Beauty Bonanza.
