Starside Simmentals
Since long before starting my pedigree herd of Simmentals I have been interested in breeding polled (naturally hornless) cattle. Therefore I have specifically selected animals with the polled gene for my pedigree herd right from the start and whilst the herd is still in its relative infancy it already has a number of good cattle with a high percentage of natural polls.
Our latest stock bull, Heathbrow Saracen (P), was purchased privately from David and Lesley Sapsed of Codicote, Hetfordshire. This bull left us with a number of nice calves, none of which has ever had horns. As there are now several daughters of his coming into the herd, it was decided that we would sell Saracen after the 2009 service season and he has now left the herd. It is for this reason that we visited Thirsk pedigree sales in May 2009 and purchased the cow Beaghall Fiona 2nd and her polled, three month old bull calf Beaghall Atlas 09(P) with the hope that Atlas will become our future herd sire whilst keeping the polled gene and being an outcross to the rest of our stock.
See the full Thirsk show and sale report at http://www.britishsimmental.co.uk/sales/2009/0512_thirsk/index.html
Contact: starside@fsmail.net
For up to date information on our polled simmentals that we have for sale currently please see the link below.
Stock For Sale.
Our main cow families descend from purchases of cattle originating from the Atlow, Heathbrow, Cairnview and Moorside herds.
One of the founding cows of our herd, Cairnview Eilidh, was bought at the Carlisle pedigree sales in April 2000 with her bull calf Annick Lomond at foot. She was then 6 years old and Lomond was her 4th calf. Lomond was used as a stock bull here for one season, (2001 when the country was under Foot and Mouth movement restrictions,) but he was mainly used on the dairy herd that we had at the time and never had any pedigree offspring. He was then sold on to another local dairy farmer.
Sadly Eilidh died on 29th November 2009, just one month short of her 16th birthday. She had been fit and well until the very end and so it seems that old age finally caught up with her. In the years that we had Eilidh she calved every year with 11 heifer calves in 9 calvings, having a total of 15 calves in 13 calvings between here and her previous herd. Her legacy will therefore live on for some time in our herd as at the time of her death we had 6 daughters, 3 grandaughters and 2 great grandaughters in the herd as well as a smart 5 month old grandson, Apollo. The mantle of the oldest cow in the herd passed fittingly to one of Eilidh's daughters, Pippa.
What better advert could there be for the longevity of the Simmental breed!
Goodbye Old Girl.
Cairnview Eilidh 01/01/94 to 29/11/09
The Eilidh Family Tree at Starside.