A beef farming family from Caithness has been awarded one of the highest accolades in the Scottish Charolais cattle breeding world.
The Mill family, who run the Forsie herd of Charolais at Westfield, Thurso, are this year’s recipients of the Harman Charolais Genetic Improvement Award.
The award recognises the breeder who has made the greatest genetic progress amongst the breed’s Scottish herds during the last 12 months.
It was launched in 2009 to recognise the contribution made to the breed by founder member, the late Tony Harman, and his son, Dan. Tony was among the first to import Charolais cattle to the UK from France in the 1960s and founded the Chesham herd.
Herd progress was measured by the highest improvement in the self replacing index (SRI) for calves born in 2015, and recorded over the 2015/2016 recording years. During that period, the 40-cow Forsie herd SRI increased by 9.1 points to an average SRI of +43.9.
William Mill, who farms in partnership with his parents Russell and Mary, said: “I’m pleased to receive this award for Scotland and to endorse the fact Breedplan data does what it says on the tin – it has helped to take the herd to a new level.
“We introduced the herd to Breedplan performance recording as an additional selection tool six years ago, not only for our own purposes, but to also meet the demand from our customers – we tend to sell all our bulls at the farmgate to suckler producers.”
He attributed the herd’s most recent progress to the influence of stock bull Goldies Hotspur, which was bought for 15,000gn in October 2013 when he stood junior champion at the Stirling Bull Sales.
Mr Mill said Hotspur was selected for his high calving ease direct and muscle score estimated breeding values (EBVs).
“We’ve used him wholesale across the herd and he has definitely proved his worth. His calves have been easily calved, and we have the best string of bulls for a long while as well as a number of quality heifers – we’ll use their accompanying Breedplan data to help select our replacements,” added Mr Mill.
The award winner for England, Wales and Northern Ireland were: the Heath family, who run the Sackville herd at Hartfield in East Sussex; Gareth Jones who runs the Esgob herd in Gwynedd; and Harold Stubbs and Alan Burleigh who run the Derryharney herd at Lisnakea, Co Fermanagh.
The SRI improvement for each respective herd was +9.9 to +52.6; +2.4 to +41.8; and +5.4 to +32.5.
