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Farming on the Estate

Farming at Buccleuch has been a major core business for generations across the four rural Estates north and south of the border and has maintained a strong commitment to environmental and conservation standards, not least here on the Queensberry Estate at Drumlanrig Castle.

Across the Group, farming enterprises include the production of beef cattle for use by Buccleuch Foods; 1 dairy unit producing 1 million litres of milk annually; a Freedom Foods accredited free range egg business; and hill and low ground sheep rearing units.

The in-hand farms at Drumlanrig extend to around 3,400 hectares and are part of a 45,000 hectare estate here at Queensberry.

The home farms of Holestane and Tibbers are centred around Drumlanrig Castle and sit astride the River Nith where the land rises from 50 m above sea level to 800 m at its highest point, with soils ranging from Alluvial Loams to heavy clays. This allows the farms to carry three main enterprises: Beef, Hill and Lowland Sheep and Arable.

The Beef enterprise consists of finishing spring born store cattle from our Bowhill Estate at Selkirk and includes the breeds Aberdeen Angus, Charolais, Limousin, Shorthorn and Galloway. After the second grazing season these cattle are all finished on a ration formulated from home-grown produce giving full traceability for Farm Assurance.

There are three separate sheep flocks on the Estate: one lowland flock and two hill flocks.

The lowland flock consists of Texel, Greyface and Highlander ewes. Texel and Suffolk sires are used to produce good quality lambs. Lambing at present starts inside in mid-March with ewes and lambs being turned out to grass as they lamb where they remain until all lambs are finished and sold. The farms are gradually changing the breed lines using the easier lambing breed of the Highlander ewe with the result that outdoor lambing will become the norm at a slightly later time in the spring.

The two hill flocks carry Scottish Blackface ewes and total around 3000 ewes between them. Scottish Blackface and some Texel sires are used to produce hardy lambs capable of surviving extreme weather. Lambing is carried outside and starts in mid-April. Ewes are lambed on the lower fields and turned back to the hill as the lambs grow stronger. The lambs remain on the higher ground until the autumn and are then moved to lower ground for finishing on grass and kale before being sold.

Approximately 400 hectares of the better quality arable land is used for growing cereals, the main crops being barley, wheat, oilseed rape and spring beans. The barley grain is a high quality home-grown feed used to grow and finish the beef animals. A proportion of the wheat crop is clamped and can be used as a feed being mixed with grass silage, barley or beans. The barley straw is used as a feed for cattle or sheep with the poorer quality straw being used as bedding.

For further information tel. 01848 600283 or Contact Us.