The Farmers Mart Apr-May 2018 - Issue 56 | Page 48

48 MIDHOPE HALL FARM
APR/MAY 2018 • farmers-mart.co.uk
SIMMENTALS ALL THE
WAY AT MIDHOPESTONES
CHRIS Berry talks with Craig and John
Hollingsworth at Midhope Hall Farm
When John Hollingsworth bought his first
Simmental bull at Crewe in 1984 he con-
fesses to having come home with a fear as
to what his father would say, not about the
quality of the beast but over the money he
had bid and paid.
‘I’d known my father liked white headed
cattle like Herefords and had been taken
with the Simmentals. I’d told him what I
was looking for and I paid what was the
top price of the day. I was confident hat he
was a good ‘un but I was a bit frightened,
as a young lad, of coming back and telling
him what I’d given but he saw what he was
like – Sterling Manhattan – and said it was
all right.’
Since that time and more particularly
over the past seven years the Holling-
sworths have built a solid reputation for
their pedigree Midhope herd both in the
sale and show rings from Midhope Hall
Farm at Midhopestones between Sheffield
and Penistone. Craig has now been chair-
man of the North East Simmental Breeders
Club for the past five years and rosettes
and trophies are commonplace around the
farm.
‘We bought Sterling Manhattan to use on
our Friesian cows to produce good quality
beef heifers and bulls,’ says John. ‘We didn’t
start getting any pedigree heifers until 1987.
By then we could see how our Friesian
cows were doing by being crossed with
him. Their progeny had good growth rates
and we even milked some Simmental X
Friesian heifers putting them into our milk-
ing herd. They very nearly gave as much as
the Friesians.’
The dairy herd was dispersed in 2007
when the Hollingsworths gave up milking.
Milk quotas had forced them to down-
size years previously from their heights
of having 75 cows. The collapse of Dairy
Farmers of Britain proved the last straw, but
they had always had a beef herd and it was
Sterling Manhattan that showed them the
way forward.
‘He earned us a great deal and gave us
the impetus to move towards pedigree live-
stock,’ says John. ‘Our next pedigree bull
purchase was Greenside Eric from North
Yorkshire. We then bought Dyfed Lord
from Wales and followed him with Pasture
House Paleface from Cumbria. Today we
run three Simmental bulls across both our
herds which include a herd of 70 pedigree
Simmental cows and in-calf heifers and a
herd of 30 commercial cows and heifers.
We continue to bull everything naturally
as we get more calves on the ground than
we were doing AI-wise. All our cattle run
together fed on grazed grass in summer and
grass silage in winter. We creep feed the
calves; and bulls going for fattening are fed
ad-lib.
‘We aim for calving from the period
of September to November because
we’ve found most folk want their bulls in
the springtime when they are around 18
months old. If we calve in spring, we have
to sell them when they are two years old
Woodhall Everhart