A FULL-BLOWN beef-rearing system usually involves breeding and raising beef calves and seeing them finished as the Sunday joint. This may be a bit ambitious for the beginner, both in terms of time and cost, but there are plenty of alternatives to suit all pockets and abilities. In spite of their size, cattle are surprisingly easy to look after, which makes them worth considering by any smallholder with a few of acres of grassland.

For the complete beginner who is venturing into cattle-keeping for the first time, probably the easiest option is to start with some stores. These are reared calves varying in age from about 6-12 months. You can buy rearing calves, but as these still need milk feeding you run a greater risk of problems as they can be very susceptible to scour and pneumonia.

Assuming that you are buying from the market you will in all likelihood know very little of the animal's history. It's far better, if you can, to buy direct from a local farmer who will not only give details of the management system he has been using, but will be a fund of good advice which should get you off to a flying start.

The aim with store cattle is to finish them as cheaply and as quickly as possible, so buying in the spring when the new grass is shooting is an ideal time to start. The animals are out to pasture throughout the summer and autumn and then brought inside to finish on concentrates, hay/silage at around 18-24 months or even earlier with very intensive feeding. Alternatively, they can be sold on again when grazing declines at the end of the autumn for someone else to finish. A further variation, and one popular with smallholders running native breeds, is to finish on grass alone. With this option the finishing period is longer, up to 30 months.

Having started with stores in this way, you also have the option to keep some of the heifers (females) back and use for breeding. Specialist breeders of suckler cows may throw up their hands in horror at this, but this is how we started our herd about 15 years ago and have bred some excellent calves including our own replacements.

Having said this, you do need to be careful what stock you start with and have some understanding of the different type of cattle breeds and their primary use. Cattle breeding has become quite a scientific art during the last few decades to such an extent that cattle fall into two distinct types. Milk producers and beef producers. Obviously both produce milk and both are edible and most of the native breeds tend to be dual purpose.

Friesians and Holsteins are the main milk producers and are capable of giving anywhere between 20 and 50 litres per day. Simental, Limousines, Charolais, Blondes and Belgium Blues plus others are collectively known as continentals and are very popular beef-producing cattle. We also have our own native breeds, such as Dexters, Herefords, British White and many others, which produce top-rate beef and make excellent sucklers.

The stores that we brought to start our suckler herd were two Friesian x Aberdeen Angus heifers. This is a very popular cross with diary farmers who often use an Angus bull or AI on Friesian or Holstein heifers for easy calving.

As foundation stock for a suckler herd the heifers we purchased grew into excellent cows, proving very milky, good mothers and very docile. We initially crossed them with an Angus and then subsequently used Blonde and Charolais bulls. The resulting calves have been of the highest quality. We generally sell them straight off their dams at around 7-8 months and on several occasions we've achieved the top or near top price for age in the market.

Most of our present herd is descended from these initial heifers and we've had very little difficulty with calving or other health problems. The reason for this I think is two-fold. Most calving problems are due to very big calves. The heavily-muscled continental breeds may look magnificent animals, but the exaggerated muscling can cause difficulties due to the rapid growth rate the continental breeds achieve. Our crosses negate this problem to some extent. We also have a policy of not steaming up. Our cows are only fed grass in summer and hay in winter with the addition of a couple of energy blocks containing magnesium before turn out.

The calves are timed to arrive May/June and, in spite of checking three times a day, most are dropped without us being around. They tend to be quite small, hence the easy calving, but as the mothers are very milky and they are single suckled, they grow rapidly. The continental sire usually ensures the prized muscling which is always sought after in the sale ring.

We generally keep one or two of the better heifers as replacements, but have now put a temporary halt on this as we feel our younger herd members are carrying too many continental genes. They have the heavy muscled frames of their pure-bred counterparts and two of them had to have assistance with calving last year.

These are destined to be sold on and will be replaced by two Friesian x Belgium Blue heifers. These were two poor little scrapes of just a few days old, bought from a local diary farmer and put on a Dexter cow that had given birth to a still born calf. We only intended her rearing one, but to our surprise she took to both and proved to be an exceptional mother.

Hopefully, these heifers will prove to be good milky mothers like our original Angus x Friesians. They will be put to an Angus bull in the autumn so we'll soon find out!

This, of course, is just one way of starting a suckler herd. You may prefer to begin with pure-bred cattle and the native breeds make excellent alternatives. They are hardy, usually docile and make very good mothers. They also have the advantage of having a breed society to look after their interests that comes in very handy for help and advice, especially if you are rearing finished cattle and want help with marketing.

Incidentally, if providing the Sunday joint is your ultimate aim, then native breeds should seriously be considered. Profit margins for commercial beef production tend to be slim at best and often depend on numbers and quick finishing. For the smallholder, supplying a niche market with speciality beef is often a more lucrative option. We'll be looking at this in more detail in future articles.

As you might expect, Defra has quite a lot to say about keeping livestock so before you buy anything make sure you understand the current rules and regulations. The Defra website (www.defra.gov.uk/farm/livestock/cattle-dairy/index.htm) will provide details but we'll also be looking at the current situation in next month's issue.

Having established that keeping sucklers has enough system variations to suit most smallholders, how much land do you actually need? This is a good question and depends on whether you want to produce your own hay which will mean you will need to allow for land being closed up during the spring and early summer. You will also have to take into consideration land quality and whether you are going to rear your calves to finishing.

We currently have a herd of ten cows, two of which are Dexters, plus their calves. These calves will be sold March/April as we do not rear to finishing. We also have a couple of ponies and until recently a small flock of a dozen sheep. All these were comfortably accommodated on our 20-acre holding which also usually provides enough hay for winter feed. Whether this will be the case this year is a moot point since due to the awful summer weather in June and July we had to feed hay at what should have been the height of the summer. This cut into last year's reserves, which had been ear-marked to bolster this summer's poorer crop.

Courses

Plumpton College at Netherfield Centre for Sustainable Food and Farming: Starting a beef herd - June 19, 10am-4pm, price £60. Managing a beef herd - June 26, 10am-4pm, price £60. Telephone: 01424 775615. Email: info@thenetherfieldcentre.co.uk. Website: www.thenetherfieldcentre.co.uk.

ACS Distance Education Limited, Student Services,PO Box 4171, Stourbridge, DY8 2WZ: Beef cattle Bag206 - Distance-learning course providing a comprehensive introduction to cattle breeds; beef cattle production systems; cattle breeding; diseases in beef cattle; nutrition for beef cattle; commercial herd management; feed lot management; stud herd management; management, economics and marketing . Calf rearing Bag207 - distance-learning course developing your ability to manage the rearing of calves for different agricultural purposes. It covers all aspects of calf rearing including calf selection, birth, calf diseases, rearing systems, calf housing, weaning and post weaning. Telephone: 0800 328 4723, 9am-4pm (UK only). UK Fax: +44(0)207 6812702. International phone: +44 1384 4 44718. Email: info@acsedu.co.uk. Website: www.acsedu.co.uk.