Highland Cattle

We have been rearing Highland cattle at Romesdal for over ten years now and the thought struck me as to how my views have changed over time. Then, the most notable feature of the Highlander was colour. Now, it is whether they are capable of producing a suitable large calf which will sell well at the mart.

In other words, who cares what colour the cow is as long as she is in proportion.

At calving time in the early years we would be slightly disappointed if the calf was male, for some reason thinking heifer calves best. Not so now. Once you have your optimum fold number and don't need replacements then you get more bucks from your efforts from bullocks. Fact of life.

The Highlander, apart from being more photogenic than other breeds of cattle, is part of the larger grouping of cattle bred primarily for beef. It stands to reason therefore that a good proportion of heifers will also end up as beef or the planet would soon be overrun by them.

That is why as a breeder you get immense satisfaction when your lovingly reared heifers are sold to continue the line in some other part of the country or indeed some other part of the world.

To return to the question of colour, what I really like about our little fold of six breeding cows, Iain the bull and their followers, is that we have one black cow, one white, one yellow, one red and two dun. As for their followers, we have one not so little white bull (son of Iain), three white heifer two year olds, one red three year old heifer and five little calves of varying colours from last year.

The moral being the more colour the merrier as long as the quality is there.