Lincoln Reds: Past, Present & Future

Every year in preparation for winter we put the whole herd through a series of health tests in order to maintain our accreditation under the HiHealth Herdcare Cattle Health Scheme. This is a big investment of time and money but it shows the world how well we look after our cattle and gives us useful insights. The process tests for diseases like BVD, TB and Lepto and warning signs like liver-fluke antibodies. Faecal matter is tested for parasites, relevant vaccinations are given and trace elements are checked to ensure optimal nutrition.

Every aspect of our cattle’s lives is carefully documented, including age, medication given and family lines. As ours is a historic, pedigree herd, documenting heredity is vital. The age and purity of the breed can be a boon in the calving season, with veterinary assistance required in only 2% of births. With other cattle, commercial cross-breeding aimed at producing larger calves can cause problems for cows lacking the right adaptations.

We’ve also enlisted the help of Signet Breeding Services. Their system helps us analyse both pedigree and performance and arrive at a range of Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs). We weigh our animals on a monthly basis from the very beginning of their lives. Calves are weighed and tagged within a  few hours of birth. This and other data is used by Signet to give us insights into the herd’s genetic profile. It’s like a cheat sheet. It gives us a better prediction of health and productivity than we’d get with the naked eye.

PASTURE & PADDOCKS

We are proud to be accredited by the Pasture for Life Association and we wholeheartedly share their commitment to farming in sympathy with nature. We’ve adopted a rotational paddock system, meaning that each of our one-hectare grass paddocks typically gets months to re-grow after a visit from the Reds.

The team set up fields as they go and take care not to disrupt our wildlife too much. We currently make a double-line outside the grazing perimeter to allow a 1m-1.5m margin for wildlife. One area will provide up to three days of grazing at a time. For summer grazing, two tons of grass consumed per hectare, per day is the sweet spot. The cattle get fresh, high-quality food, and 1.5 tons of grass per hectare is left behind. This means that the grass doesn’t get grazed down to the point where it has to dig into its reserves to grow new leaves; when the cattle move on, photosynthesis and abundant new growth get going promptly with the help of plenty of natural fertilizer.

Each of our paddocks will be visited between once and three times per year and our Reds relish the long, succulent grass they get every day. This contrasts with a more intensive farming model which can entail grazing one piece of land for a full year, giving wildlife little space to flourish. Our herbage grows up to one-metre tall and creates a haven for moths, butterflies, grasshoppers and all sorts of fly. Songbirds and mammals abound, and the presence of raptors like barn owls, tawny owls, kestrels, buzzards and red kites is a strong indicator of a healthy food chain.

Keeping all of our Lincoln Reds outdoors all-year round is good news for our flora and fauna, particularly in the lean winter months. Mob-grazing cattle leave behind plenty of natural fertiliser and their cropping encourages tillering, the process by which plants generate multiple new shoots. It’s all good news for dung beetles and an abundance of other insects, which attract bats, swifts and swallows.

We’ve counted seven bat species doing their own aerobatic grazing. Each bat species prefers a different grass level because they’ve learned the preferences of the moth species they prey upon. Wildlife is also more abundant around living field edges than it is in dense forest, so our efforts to sow wild margins and plant hedgerows are paying dividends. House martins, swallows and swifts are regular visitors to our summer pastures, the cleanest, greenest way of managing flying-insect numbers that we know of.

If you explore South Ormsby Estate via our walking trails, you might notice that many of our mature trees are surrounded by rough circular lines. Our Reds browse trees, nibbling leaves and twigs for extra vitamins and nutrients. They instinctively know what plants make good natural medicines, and biodiversity means they can generally find what they need. Oak leaves, for example, reduce burping while nettles and thistles help ease indigestion.

Ours is a low-carbon farming model. We get around on lightweight quad-bikes rather than tractors, and the herd moves itself from paddock to paddock. Not only are natural pastures effective carbon sinks, but grazing animals return nutrients to the soil in their dung. We don’t use petrol-based fertilisers or insecticides, reducing the energy used in chemical manufacturing and keeping the soil biome healthy. We’re also in the process of phasing out the use of plastic-wrapped silage.

HERITAGE

Originating in Eastern England, the Lincoln Red is one of the UK’s oldest native breeds. These handsome cattle are widely known for their hardiness, docility and dark red coats which protect them from sunburn and melanoma.

It is believed that Norse settlers brought the hardy ancestors of our native cattle to Britain in the first millennium. The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw a number of Lincolnshire breeders cross local draught cows with medium-sized shorthorn bulls and heifers from Yorkshire and Durham. By 1896, the Lincoln Red Shorthorn had its own herd book.

Eric Pentecost of Cropwell Butler near Nottingham is generally credited with polling the Lincoln Red between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s. In 2021, one of our social media followers, Phil Needham, very kindly shared some insights into this process, and the parts played by his father, John Needham, and his uncle, Roland Tinkler.

In Phil’s family, Eric Pentecost was seen as a rude and arrogant man who called everyone by their surname. Eric and John had a stormy relationship which came to a head when Eric wanted to introduce an Angus bull to a Red heifer. John insisted that the calf’s shoulders would be too broad for the heifer to manage safely and threatened to resign. Words were exchanged and Eric walked away. Ten minutes later he returned and said, “Needham, I admire you…not many people will stand up and argue with me.”

From then on, Eric Pentecost addressed John by his Christian name and often drew on his expertise. Between them, John, Roland and Eric spent 17 years crossing and back-crossing five generations of Aberdeen Angus and Lincoln Red Shorthorn cattle until they arrived at the polled Lincoln Red.

Original-population Lincoln Red cattle, defined as those whose bloodline is 100% native and without crossbreeding, are classed as ‘vulnerable’ by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. We are proud that our thriving herd is both pedigree and original-population.

We wholeheartedly support the RBST’s work in preserving and speaking up for our native breeds. Grazing animals on land to which they’ve adapted over centuries is better for them, better for the environment and better for consumers. As well as being good news for biodiversity and genetic resilience, native breeds connect us to our rural heritage.

BEEF

Lincoln Reds weigh in at up to 750kg live or 350kg on the hook. While the end-weight is similar across cattle breeds, our Reds are reared slowly, patiently and naturally compared to a typical commercial herd. While Angus and Limousin herds might be pushed and fattened with corn over 15-18 months, our Reds are grass-fed outdoors all year round and mature in 22-28 months.

Lincoln Red beef is distinguished by its flavourful succulence. Unlike other breeds whose meat is surrounded by fat, Lincoln Red meat is infused with collagen marbling which dissolves when cooked and gives the meat its moreish, lip-smacking quality. This is both characteristic of the breed and a result of our patient husbandry. We don’t push the pace of growth and the fact that our Reds might mature for up to 50 months means that fat is laid down through rather than just around the muscle.

Lincoln Red beef tastes wonderful but the good news doesn’t end there. Grass-fed beef is known to be richer than grain-fed beef in vitamins A, E, B12 and B6, as well as omega-3, selenium, iron, zinc and magnesium.

Our current Massingberd-Mundy Lincoln Red beef line-up includes the Pasture Beef Box, the Steak Box, roasting joints at various sizes, beef liver, beef mince and diced beef. In line with our commitment to sustainability, we also offer an offal box which has proved a big hit with meat-lovers and gastronauts. The nutrient-rich and intensely flavoursome ingredients include liver, heart, oxtail and tongue. Subject to availability, we also offer fresh and unfrozen Lincoln Red beef on a first-come, first-served basis.

Our meat is offered at a premium price point which we regard as highly competitive given the time and care involved in rearing our rare-breed, pedigree cattle, and the environmental benefits of our regenerative practices. Our herd is 100% grass-fed all-year round, accredited by the Pasture for Life Association and fully organic.

Our exacting standards result in high production costs compared to larger commercial herds, and a higher but still competitive price for the consumer. What we offer in return is some of the best beef you’ll ever taste and much more besides. Keeping our Lincoln Red herd commercially sustainable is good news for this rare, native breed, good news for the wildlife-rich pastures in which they spend their lives, and good news for the rural economy of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

This article updates an earlier version published in 2021.

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