The ‘In Thing’ is Luing
For a breed formed to disregard fashion, the Luing is no doubt in vogue as it celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.
Cattle enthusiasts from all corners of the country converged on the tiny Inner-Hebridean Island which lends its name to the breed which calls it home. Around 500 visitors spent the typically driech August day touring the 300 strong cow-herd, learning about the fascinating history of this remarkable breed, enjoying glimpses of the beautiful west-coast scenery and celebrating in style – good beef, a dram and a ceilidh.
Run by the Cadzow family, husband and wife team Shane and Tootie are the second generation on Luing, with a third eager to be involved in not only the heart of a cattle breed, but all that makes the tiny Island community tick.
The 15 miles to Oban is complicated by a 220 yard, three minute ferry trip across the Cuan Sound. The management of grazing land of over 8000 acres is challenging too, as more than half of it is on the three off-lying islands of Scarba, Torsa and Lunga.
Eldest son Archie Cadzow spoke of the future of the business on the Island, highlighting the three pillars upon which it was based. A livestock enterprise, based around the 300 cow herd and 1800 ewes, with continued emphasis on efficiency. Diversification, building on the tourism and renewable energy developments already in place. And thirdly, keeping people and jobs on the Island.
The livestock enterprise, managed by Leslie Robson with duties shared with Bobby Campbell and Alan Housley, has been honed to make the most of the resources available on the Island. With any ‘imports’ of straw or feed at high cost, wintering is all out-door for cattle and sheep. Lambs from the Blackface and Lleyn cross ewes are sold store, as are steer calves and a proportion of heifer calves before their first winter.
Cows calve in their ‘hefted’ hills, with the exception of two year old heifers, which are only housed for calving. Silage is fed to cows through the winter at fenced-off feeding stations positioned around the island, allowing troughs to be filled when cows are shut out grazing and sheltering in the afternoon. Each ‘heft’ of cows can be simply checked by counting into the feed station through the gate the following morning. This system is particularly useful at calving time, giving the stockmen a number to work from when hunting the nooks and crannies around the rocks and hills for freshly calved cows.
Calving ease, calf vigour and udder type cannot be compromised in such a system, just as much as mothering ability, foraging ability and hardiness cannot. The trump card of the Luing breed in this system however is her temperament. Although attentive mothers, the Luing is an easy cow to work with. Visitors at the Anniversary Open Day were particularly impressed at the relaxed attitude the cows and calves took to being corralled into corners by hundreds of visitors to the normally sparsely populated Island.
With a Luing herd of around 300 cows, the Island is home to one of the largest pedigree herds in Britain, despite is fiercely commercial management. Around 70 of the cows are put to the Simmental, to cater for a strong demand for Sim-Luing breeding heifers, but the rest are bred pure.
A structured breeding program utilising 5 bull lines rotationally over 6 ‘hefts’ of cows has been in place since the inception of the breed and continues to be used on the Island of Luing. The system was developed to ensure a variation in bloodlines was maintained, but also ensuring a level of consistency of stock.
How the Breed Began – a timeline
1947. The three Cadzow brothers Denis, Shane and Ralph bought part of the 3900 acre Island of Luing in 1947. Ralph Cadzow, interviewed in 2005, looked back on the embryo days of the breed. “We were just practical cattlemen at the time.” Scale and size were important because fat cattle were paid on a dead-weight basis. There was a disconnect between pedigree breeders following the American fashion of compact cattle for ‘baby-beef’ and the economic reality of finishing cattle.
Thursday 20th May 1965 found representatives from every beef breed in Scotland along with many top cattle breeders, scientists and beef experts making their way to the island to assess this new breed. After 17 years of breeding, and some cattle 5 generations into the ‘Luing Project’, the Cadzow brothers had enough stabilised cattle on the ground and enough confidence in what they had done that it was time to present the Luing to the public.
One newspaper report of the day put it: “Through rigorous selection against poor wintering, irregular breeding, lack of docility and unsatisfactory conformation, a herd of most level and sizable cows has been established, some of them being 5th generation by Luing bulls. The breed combines the hardiness and foraging ability of the Highland breed with the fleshing qualities, weight gain and food conversion of the Beef Shorthorn. Furthermore it has put size back into the latter breed.” The reaction was beyond the brothers’ wildest dreams and this was the trigger to seeking official recognition of the Luing breed.
2nd November 1965 The Luing breed was officially recognised by Act of Parliament, allowing the Ministry of Agriculture to License Luing bulls for use in other herds.
The First Sale 2nd March 1966 with 6 two year old bulls and 55 heifers. “It was a nerve-wracking time for the Cadzow brothers. We wondered if anyone would come, let alone bid!” recalled Ralph. They need never have feared – the ring was packed and the sale had to be relayed over loud speakers to those who could not get into the ring. The heifers averaged £131.13s to a top of £180, and the bulls levelled at a hugely impressive £735, culminating in the last beast in the ring, a yellow-roan bull Luing Legend selling for a record price for Oban Market of 1000gns. Buyer, Col Balfour of Dirnanean summed up the success of the sale by saying: “In these cattle we see something nobody else have been able to give us – size, substance and sappiness.”
The Cadzow Brothers’ Vision
Denis Cadzow gave a paper to the British Cattle Breeders’ Club (BCBC) in Cambridge 1967 – ‘The making of a brand new breed of cattle, the Luing Breed.’
In it, he describes being brought up on the arable lands of the East Coast of Scotland, where the Cadzow brothers grew grain, seed potatoes, turnips and grass – finishing Irish cattle was all part of the rotation, but it was uncomfortable that the dung-midden sometimes came at a high cost! They started buying Shorthorn cross Highland suckled calves in the 1930s and they fitted in well, out-wintering and economically converting forage into beef. The next logical step was to be in control of the supply. The following are extracts from the BCBC paper.
Why not breed our own store stock on the cheaper lands of the West of Scotland for feeding in the East, and send food for wintering our cows from the East where it is cheaper to grow?
We required a breed which is self-propagating and can, throughout the whole process of breeding and feeding, be profitable to the owner and produce a carcase which is needed by the public.
Armed with the knowledge gained from having bought and fed calves of the Beef Shorthorn x Highland cross, the brothers stocked the Isle of Luing with heifers mostly sourced from 3 herds. In order to short-cut having to keep pure Highlanders to replenish the herd, and to reduce the variation in the stock, they set about fixing a breed at the 2nd cross Beef Shorthorn over the Highland.
To this end we were fortunate in procuring the last son of one of the most famous Beef Shorthorn sires ever bred – Cruggleton Perfect. His name brings to mind all the size, scouth and soundness ever required in breeding cattle. This son , called Cruggleton Alastair was mated to these first-cross heifers, and his first cop of calves were as uniform and as near our ideal as ever we had hoped to get. I often think that one of the most satisfactory things in this life is when your get a group of calve which have just that much more good in them than either of the parents individually.
From that first cop we obtained permission from the Department of Agriculture to keep a bull calf, and that calf’s name was Luing Mist. He was the start of our journey towards fixing this breed of Shorthorn x Highland at the second cross.
From here on, by inbreeding and line-breeding we have now put many generations behind us and can claim that we have fixed this breed to breed true to type – not only for looks, but I am sure we have retained in our Luing breed many of the great qualities of the parent breeds. From the Highlander we have got longevity, hardiness and that wonderful bone structure and good feet, bred in them for generations. She has also given that freedom from over-fattiness in the finished animal and last but not least, her ability to grow bone on acid soil. From the Beef Shorthorn we have that tremendous fleshing ability and rate of weight gain, their depth of flesh and carcase conformation. The two breeds, in fact, are analogous to each other.
We are determined to keep this bred with its feet on the ground and not allow the art of showing to overtake the art of breeding.
“It has been a most interesting and exciting process, seeing this breed take shape. It has been evolved through necessity to ourselves. Many have been the disappointments and failures on the way, but we rather feel like the racehorse now at the starting post ready to take off. However, in spite of all this, the whole criterion of the cattle breeding business is not what one sees in one’s lifetime, but what one leaves for future generations – that is what really counts.”
Evolution over 50 Years.
The Luing breed has expanded throughout Scotland, not just to the hills of the West Coast, but everywhere that an efficient cow is appreciated. There are quite a number of breeders in the Border hills and Northumberland, but also as far as Dartmoor, Wales and Ireland. Luing herds are also flourishing further afield in Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand and Tasmania.
The Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in 2001 saw a step change for the breed in more recent times. As cattle breeders in many parts of the country looked to re-stock, many businesses took the opportunity to have a long, hard look at the opportunities in cost control in beef production. This resulted in a huge interest in the Luing breed and a large increase in the number of herds.
This infusion of new people into the Luing Society was a great source of energy and motivation. It also highlighted the great advantage that established breeders had in their knowledge of pedigrees and sires of the past. To help new breeders, as well as established ones in a growing breed, keep abreast of the important qualities in the bulls they were selecting from at sales, an innovative Dam Classification Scheme was developed.
From 2004, the dams of all bulls at Society Sales have been classified by a Society Fieldsman. They are scored for feet and locomotion, udder and teat qualities against a breed standard, and any bull with a sub-standard dam is not eligible for sale. Scores are available at the sale, where buyers can use them to highlight a breeding line which might be a particular improver in a trait which is of concern in his own herd. Similar scores are also made on temperament, skeletal size and condition score, with no particular range or direction prescribed.
Perhaps the most important of all traits is the calving interval figure, with the number of calvings and average calving interval displayed for each dam. It is not uncommon to find bulls from dams with over 8 calvings behind them. One bull at the most recent sale boasted a mother who calved first at 25 months of age and had an average calving interval of 367 days over 11 calvings.
Society Fieldsman, Charles Symons, highlights what he feels the greatest achievement of the Dam Classification Scheme. “The fact that we just don’t see cows with poor physical traits put in front of us anymore is testament that it is working. Either the cow herds themselves are improving, or breeders are simply not keeping potential bulls out of cows that aren’t going to score well. I suspect it’s down to a combination of both.”
The Luing has grown in a more controversial way too – the physical stature of the breed. The Luing was commended for its growth in the 1960s, when steers finished on grass at 18 months hit the perfect market specification at 8 ½ cwt (or 450kg in new money). Pure Luing steers are still perfectly capable of reaching spec at 18 months from grass, but the goal-posts have changed somewhat. 650kg in the same time-scale has necessitated a larger framed animal – both steer and cow.
Mature cow size is an emotive subject in the suckler industry, as it is within the Luing breed, with a variation in different herds in different environments. The Cadzow brothers were clear in their outlook on this: Ralph warned, “Never forget the steer. If the steer is not pretty good going through the auction ring the Luing cow will not be required.” Denis, in his paper to the British Cattle Breeders’ Club stated the following in 1967.
“Breed Societies may sometimes have too many restrictions and smother initiative. They should realise that where a breed is too much of one type it will cease to evolve to meet changing demands. A certain diversity is needed if one has ever to be constructive. It has sometimes been said that the aim of breed societies is to ‘maintain the purity of the breed’. Yes, I think that that is a very commendable ‘aim’ but I feel sure that the great pioneers of the past who started breeds would rather see the cattle preserved, than their book of rules. That is the heritage we have been given – the cattle, not the rules, and I think those early breeders would find us sadly neglectful if we did not do everything possible to keep pace with the times and produce the type of cattle which are now in demand.”
This was at the founding of the Luing Cattle Society, looking backwards. On its 50th anniversary, I like to think he would still have the same pioneering spirit looking forward.
The Luing Cattle Society in a Snapshot
- Xxx members
- Yyy active herds
- 9270 registered Luing females (3062 in 2001)
- 15 000 Luing females on BCMS database
- In-keeping with the Cadzow brothers’ vision, there is no showing of Luing cattle.