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Our cows
Portnellan first and foremost is a dairy farm and therefore we have dairy cows: Ayrshires and Friesians. The Ayrshires are brown & white and the Friesians are black & white. Friesians may look like Holsteins, which are also black & white, but they are much smaller. We prefer smaller cows because we are steep and wet – they don’t cause so much damage to the fields.
Before a dairy cow produces milk she must first have a calf. Cows are called heifers before they calve. When the heifers are about 20 months old they are put ‘into calf’. For their first pregnancy, we use a Limousin bull as the sire - we carefully select a bull that will produce a petite calf to allow the cow to calve easily. Limousins have a lighter frame than many other beef bulls.
If the first-calf heifers (as they are called after the first calving) milk very well and look as if they will be good dairy cows, then next time we use a good dairy bull as the sire. In that way, we hope that they will in turn produce a nice little heifer calf that will grow up into a good milking dairy cow. This is how we have slowly built up a herd of healthy and productive cows.
Although the other first-calf heifers may not produce future generations of dairy cows, they will continue to be put in calf to a Limousin bull. And they still have a very important place on our farm, helping to contribute to the 30,000 litres of organic milk we produce every month, while their offspring provide us with the wonderful Portnellan dairy beef.
A cow has a calf every year and she produces milk for 10 months after calving. Then she has a rest (the ‘dry’ period) for two months before she calves again. On Portnellan we believe in keeping our cows for as long as possible so our oldest cow is 15 years old, which means that she has had about 12 milking seasons.
The milking cows and the young beef animals live on our farm, feeding from our lush pastures. The beef animals are kept for up to 30 months – they mature slowly and are raised with the dairy herd so that they become very gentle and enjoy human company. This is very important when they are sent to the abattoir; everyone comments on how quiet and gentle our animals are – they don’t become stressed on their final journey and this too contributes to the quality of the meat.
Read more about calving and milking

A brown & white Ayrshire dairy cow
  

A black & white Friesian dairy cow


An Ayrshire dairy calf (left) with a Friesian-Limousin beef calf


A Limousin bullock