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Animal records
Lackham Limousins serving up £1500 profit
margins!
Easy calving Limousins heifers at Lackham College
Lackham College Limousins go on display
Project students get hands on Limousins at Lackham
College 
Strong
maternal characteristics and excellent temperaments have been highlighted
during the first calvings of the Lackham pedigree Limousin herd.
The birth of the first calves is a milestone for the project at Lackham College, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, which was established in 1999 with an investment of £20,000 by the British Limousin Cattle Society.
Seventeen of the nineteen Limousin heifers have now calved easily, pleasing farm manager Philip Steans who is in charge of the project. One heifer is still due to calve in July.
"The Limousin heifers have been extremely easy to manage. All but one had absolutely no help in calving and the majority have all had quiet temperaments," he said.
One calf was lost, born dead 14 days overdue and weighing a massive 54kg. Even then Mr. Steans said the mother was back on her feet within 10 minutes and was absolutely fine.
In order to keep her milk right the heifer has since been milked in the parlour alongside the college's herd of 150 Holstein Friesians!
"Her temperament is first class. She has been very quiet to milk right from the first day. It is interesting that the quality of her milk beats the Holstein Friesians at 4.47 per cent butterfat and 3.94 per cent protein compared with the dairy cows' figures of 3.92 butterfat and 3.27 protein," said Mr Steans.
As the project develops, it is intended that some study of the optimum level of milk production to give a good level of calf performance and cow reproductive efficiency will be carried out.
So far the 17 calved heifers have produced nine male and seven female live calves which averaged 38.6kg at birth, ranging in weight from 33kg to 44kg. On their first weighing after two weeks the calves had averaged an impressive daily weight gain of 1.2kg, ranging from 1kg to 1.6kg.
The heifers' gestation length average was within the standard bovine 290 days, ranging from 282 to 290 days for the 16 which produced live calves.
Temperament of the heifers has been excellent with all but two being given top temperament scores. These two heifers which were the first to calve were separated from the rest of the herd and Mr.Steans attributes this to the difficulties.
The heifers maintained their condition during gestation with their scores ranging from 3.5 to 3.75. From housing in October, they were fed grass silage and maize silage restricted to 25kg a day with 1kg of concentrates. After calving the heifers have all began bulling again and two have been served by AI.
The first two calves born at the turn of the year were by AI bulls Greenwell Manager and Normande Jack. The remainder of the calves were by the high beef value and easy calving score bull Middledale Poacher, which was purchased from the second sale at Limtest, in north Yorkshire, the Limousin bull testing station which also has the backing of the Limousin society.
Unfortunately, Middledale Poacher died shortly after housing, with veterinary investigation confirming pleurisy as the cause.
The need for a new stock bull has been satisfied with the recent purchase of Dyfri Robin bought from the herd of D.G. & M.J. Edwards & Son, Home Farm, Cilycwm, Llandovery, Dyfed. This February 2000 born bull is by the Edward's French bred bull Jockey and is out of a Rake Denver, Tanhill Toujour cow, Dyfri Jemima.
The first eight sons of Jockey sold at auction to a top price of 14,000gns and averaged £6750. Most recently, a Jockey son Dyfri Pascal, topped the Society's February sale at £9500 and it was this bull that led Philip Steans to Llandovery.
"I liked the bull sold at Carlisle and I am delighted now to have a Jockey son going into the College herd. He's a good all round well balanced bull with a strong visual appeal and I am sure he will put a quality stamp on the Lackham herd", said Mr. Steans.
Dyfri Robin also has excellent performance figures across the traits with an overall Beef Value of LM +28 putting him in the breed's top 10% of recorded bulls.
In addition to the pedigree project, the college is working with Southern Counties, Quality Calves and Meadow Valley Livestock comparing high beef value and low beef value sires on 60 Limousin cross heifers and bulls.
A further 20 Limousin heifers purchased in February 2000 form part of a small single suckler enterprise which is being monitored in conjunction with the pedigree herd. Both of these initiatives will provide a basis of genetic material to introduce comparative commercial trials.
Iain Kerr, the Limousin Society's chief executive, outlined that the project would concentrate on looking at the maternal traits.
"The Limousin breed has inherent strengths in terms of feed efficiency, killing out percentage and meat yield. This should not overshadow what the breed offers maternally. Through the Lackham project we will be looking closely at calving ease, optimum level of milk for environment, fertility, mothering ability and the marketing flexibility of the progeny", he said.
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