Fermanagh Grassland Club members travelled to South West Scotland for a day earlier this year on a study tour of dairy and beef farms.
Last week’s report featured the visit to the dairy farm of Raymond Beggs.
This week, the report outlines the visit was to Harvey Sloan’s beef and sheep enterprise at the scenic Mull of Galloway at the tip of the peninsula which happens to be the most southerly part of Scotland.
Harvey Sloan runs 300 suckler cows, mostly Limousins as well as some Angus and British Blue on a farm with 650 acres owned and 180 acres rented.
He also runs a flock of 500 ewes crossed to a Texel ram with ewe lambs crossed with Suffolks. Most of the lambs are gone off the farm by mid June.
Lambing is from the end of January to mid March, freeing up shed space for calving.
The Sloans have been at Mull of Galloway only since 1993, moving from Ayrshire as their farm there was bought by a compulsory purchase order by the Coal Board. He and his wife, Angela and his parents, Billy and Morag moved to their present location which they have developed to what it is today.
180 cows are spring calvers with the progeny finished, some for the Christmas or January beef market when prices are traditionally higher.
The Sloans grow 120 acres of spring barley. The grain is a a useful feed but the straw is used extensively for bedding especially for finishing cattle at the back end of the year and for calving pens.
Harvey Sloan said that since moving to the tip of the Mull of Galloway, he has seen earlier grass growth than in Ayrshire.
Finishing cattle achieve deadweights to average 392 kgs at 20 months with many sold a few months younger.
Harvey sources most of his bulls from pedigree sales in Carlisle. He has individual bull pens which are aimed at safety and efficiency. No-one needs to enter the pens at any time as bedding and cleaning can be done with the bulls restrained in a smaller area.
Harvey has found that keeping forward stores indoors during the summer improved the finishing period as they would tend to have a setback in growth once let outside in the spring. There is often a problem of dry summers resulting in lack of grass.The average cost of feeding is £1 per day using a mixture of straw, molasses, and blend. The finished cattle are slaughtered at ABP Perth.
The family have constructed most of their interior feeding rails and pens in the cattle houses..
As part of a diversification project, Harvey and his wife, Angela opened the Galle Craig Coffee House, a grass roofed building with stunning views over the sea.  It and the nearby lighthouse which is open as a tourist attraction are the only tourist facilities in this area which is frequented by tens of thousands of visitors each year.
The Club members had their lunch at the restaurant and visited the lighthouse between farm visits. The landscape is much different from Northern Ireland as there are fewer hedges and larger fields.
There was a great local link during the visit to Harvey Sloan’s farm. William Egerton, a son of John Egerton, near Rosslea, works on the farm and he was there during the Club visit.