The Herd ……….

In October of 2000 we purchased the farm to satisfy our ambition to move out of Exeter into the country and to provide a country home for our children, pets and horses, the farm being ideally placed for Adrian to commute all over the south west with his job.

We started our herd with the purchase of three yearling heifers in the summer of 2002 at this time they were only intended to help us with the land management on the farm as the horses could not keep pace with the grass feed available each year.

The Red Ruby Devon cattle caught our eye at a dispersal sale and their friendly quite nature won us over, we registered with the Devon Cattle Breeders Society (DCBS) in order to retain their pedigree status. The society welcomed us in and we were soon travelling all over the southwest attending society events. We added to our stock initially from the biannual society sales increasing our numbers to six heifers. We hired a bull, Goldings Ransom 3rd and used him for two seasons, our first batch of five calves were born in 2004.

We all know how things change when you have children and it was the same for us when the calves arrived and we just wanted more. Like everyone in business we needed to raise the profile of our herd and we decided that the best way to promote our herd was to attend and compete in the summer shows. The society members who regularly show encouraged us along the way and this convinced us to show. We gathered as much information as we could chose our animals and then took the plunge.

In 2005 we attended in order of appearance Devon County, Royal Cornwall, Launceston, Okehampton and Holsworthy. In 2006 we added North Devon.

We now have over 40 head of cattle, we have two stock bulls and are expecting 16 calves in the new year 2007. Effectively we have two groups within the herd one fully polled and one horned which allows the exchange of offspring for future breeding lines.

Champson Topper taking it easy

The base herd is made up of a superb Champson bull called Topper, his cows are from Passaford, Cutcombe, Hansnett, Backstone, BPX & Burrough.

The polled group is covered by our home bred prize winning bull Rockley Duke 1st, with cows from Burwood & Grixti.

We have done very well with our animals at shows and with our fresh meat sales, this is the result of the help, tips and encouragement from the other DCBS members, show people, and other farmers from other breeds who we have met at shows and through our interest in cattle, now to numerous too mention individually.

Thank you to everyone you know who you are.       

Cows & calves