Home-bred Charolais genetics are producing cattle his target market likes

Gestation and fleshing ability the key for
maximum returns
At the age of 14 Richard McCornick started his own
Charolais herd, before joining the family business in
2010 along with his brother Craig. Today he is using his
own home-bred Charolais bulls’ with a focus on short
gestation lengths to help achieve maximum returns
from their commercial suckler herd.
Richard runs 500-acre Barnbackle Farm in
Dumfriesshire with his partner, Hayley, and parents
Andrew and Janice. The family runs 150 suckler
Simmental/Luing Salers and Angus cows and 900 Texel
cross Mule ewes.
Over 20 years Richard has built up the Ricnick Herd to
20 predominantly home-bred pedigree Charolais cows
with all the modern Charolais genetic benefits of easy
calving and high net weight gain, calving predominantly
in spring and summer to dovetail with the commercial
herd.
“It began as a hobby when I bought my first cow from
the Greenwell dispersal sale at Carlisle,” he says. “I have
been very interested in the back breeding and lineages and I
really enjoy showing which we have had great success recently
as we won breed champion and reserve junior interbreed with
Ricnick Thor at the Royal Highland Show this year. This was a
great achievement, something that started as a hobby, but in
the last few years when we began to realise that the Charolais
could be an integral part of our commercial business.”
Richard is taking every measure he can to achieve his goal
of improving efficiency, cutting costs and reducing inputs,
including taking part in the QMS Monitor Farm Scotland
programme. He is also now breeding to produce easier fleshing
cattle with great weight gain and ease of calving his primary
focus is on gestation which he believes is the key to ease of
calving.
“I have been focusing on bulls with short gestation lengths, and
the family line has produced a bull with a -2.5 gestation length
which is well below the average and in the top 1%. He calved
ten days before his due dates, whereas Charolais can often be a
week over its gestation period.”
Richard can trace the gestation and easy fleshing characteristics
he favours back to his 14-year-old first purchase:
“It goes back to my first ever cow, Greenwell Treasure, and her
daughter by Doonalley New, Ricnick Echo. Over that one I put
Moncur General who was known for his short gestation length
and fleshing ability. And then that produced Ricnick Nala, and
she has had a calf to Castellmawr RocketMan, a Stock bull I
purchased two years ago who was also packed with breeding
known for short gestation lengths. He has produced Ricnick
Torpedo, the bull I am now using on my pedigrees,
who has a -2.4 gestation rating.”
The McCornicks’ 150-strong commercial herd is
also home-bred, with Simmental lines crossed with
luing, but today while the heifers go to an Angus or
Salers, the 110 cows in the closed herd are bred to a
Ricnick Charolais bull.
All the Charolais calves are sold at Castle Douglas
Auction Mart at five to six months old as suckled
calves straight off the cows and this year they have
averaged 330 kilos with a selling average of £3.15
per kilo. Richard is very pleased with the results,
but his drive for efficiency has led him to switch his
calving policy.
“The Charolais spring calvers are all straight of grass
and they are creep fed only for the last six weeks
prior to sale, this makes my system simple and cuts
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down on costs. The growth rates I get
are excellent, with net gain between
1.6 and 1.8 kilos per day from birth
and I am very happy with this.
“Summer calvers overwinter
November to April and are kept
inside all the time, calves are also
sold straight off the cows, but this is
obviously more expensive, so we are
planning moving closer to all spring
calving.”
The McCornicks are also finding
significant efficiencies from wintering
their cows outside.
“The in calf commercial and pedigrees
cows are outwintered from November
to February and fed on Kale and
haylage, which I believe makes them
fit not fat – much fitter and more
agile than if they have been inside
all winter, and since we started this
are producing cattle his target market likes, and adding another
important dimension to his business.
“We have a very good market for our cattle with many repeat
buyers. Our buyers in the past have been predominantly from
Aberdeenshire but we are now selling more and more to
finishers from the North of England.
“Bulls are sold both through the Stirling Bull sales where we
have sold bulls to 16k on two occasions in the past year and
direct from the farm, and it is great that more and more are
recognising the traits of the Ricnick herd with a lot of the
Charolais cattle sold through Wallets Mart are off Ricnick bulls
which is great to see. I am producing bulls for the commercial
markets, bulls which I would like to use myself, and I am very
pleased that the lines I began 20 years ago is now appealing
both to the breeders and to the commercial producers.”
regime, our calving intervention has been minimal”
and with reduced costs from not being inside it’s a
win win situation.
The mainly summer calving Charolais herd was true
to the British Charolais’ growing reputation for easy
calving, but the results from the commercial herd
were just as impressive.
“This year spring calving was the best scanning I
have ever had: 108 cows were scanned, 108 were in
calf and there were three sets of twins, so this was
a 103% calving which is amazing and with reduced
bulling period was a great success and testament to
the ease of calving and health of the cows.”
Richard McCornick’s breeding and calving regimes
are producing exactly the efficiencies he is seeking
to make Barnbackle Farm as fit as his cows for a
sustainable future. His home-bred Charolais genetics
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