Producing even crops of well-fleshed calves from home-bred replacement females is proving a winning formula for the Stirling family, who run a profitable beef suckler cow herd on their 1500-acre upland unit on the outskirts of Carrbridge, in Strathspey. Since introducing the Simmental as a maternal sire to breed milky and fertile females, and the Limousin to produce growthy progeny for the store ring, the family has found that they are now breeding more uniform batches of calves for sale through Aberdeen and Northern Marts’ Thainstone Centre. As well as producing strong sale averages for both spring and autumn-born calves each year, the Stirlings no longer vaccinate cattle for pneumonia and they believe this is down to keeping the herd closed, apart from buying in stock bulls at United Auctions’ Stirling Bull Sales.