9 minute read
At home with the Kemps
Breeding some of the most notable animals in recent times, the Kemp family has experienced some exciting moments within the Hereford breed and in 2021 placed third in the National Herd of the Year Competition.
Watching his computer screen while heifer Auckvale Curly 1831S sold at the 2020 Designer Genes sale got his heart racing, says John Kemp who runs Auckvale Herefords together with brother Tom, sister-in-law Catherine and nephew William near Bishop Auckland, Co Durham. Having sold for a then European horned female record of 10,000gns, it is one of the most successful animals the family has bred to date. There are several animals which come to mind when you think of the Kemp brothers. This horned female is just one which after a heated bidding war between online and phone bidders was consigned to Tom and Di Harrisons’ Moralee herd. Sold at 23 months of age, the heifer was sired by Auckvale KingMaker 1265K.
Purchasers Tom and Di Harrison say they were on the hunt in the autumn of 2020 to find a herd addition which they liked as much as Coley 1 Pippa 356, one of their first purchases within the breed. They say they wanted to add another horned female to the herd and quite unusually for the Harrison pair, they agreed it should be Curly. Since, it has produced heifer calf Moralee Curly EC V30, having been bought in-calf to Ervie Classic S30, a bull from John Douglas’ renowned herd, based in Wigtownshire. Now back in-calf to SNS Generator 28X, it will be flushed by the breeders. Although having commenced breeding Herefords in the 1970s, the Kemps really started to concentrate on the breed in the early 1990s and today are recognised as one of the country’s top breeders.
Cow families at Auckvale
• Curly – purchased from the Border herd • Lively – originally purchased from the Westwood herd by Catherine’s family • Janet – purchased from John
Douglas • Beauty – purchased from Stan
Quan • Peach - purchased from John
Douglas • Pansy – purchased from Stan Quan
L-R John, William, Tom and Katherine Kemp
Setting the tone for the years to come, the Kemp family came away from their first National Hereford Show at Tenbury Wells in 1998 with both the junior male and female champion titles. Their male the family well aware of the commercial benefits the breed brings. As time went on, the breeders developed a name for themselves and in 2003, ceased dairy farming altogether.
champion was Auckvale Redoubtable while Auckvale Beauty took the female championship, and both were Salbri Loftus progeny. Loftus, bred by Mannon Lewis, Anglesey, has been a particularly influential sire at Auckvale, and was a son of Border Bugatti, bred by breed stalwart Stan Quan, Herefordshire.
Originally dairy farmers, Hereford bulls were used on the Kemps' cows, with Running 121 hectares (300 acres) across two farms, the two brothers have for a long time worked in tandem, making joint decisions and travelling the world to enjoy international events while hunting for new genetics. Now, they are joined by Tom’s son William who has recently entered the farming partnership after returning from many years working in the oil industry, spending great amounts of time on ships around the world assisting with the location of oil.
Today, the Kemps run 100 cows across Wigdon Walls and Brafferton farms, and aim to produce medium sized, functional females with power and strength, and driving between them in the field is an impressive show.
It is not just individual animals from Auckvale which impress. From 2004 to 2014, the Kemp family won six consecutive North of England Hereford Breeders’ Association herd competitions and are thrilled to have won it again in 2021. Within the herd, John says he has a particular soft spot for the Lively family, and it is clear to see why. Auckvale Lively 1058H, two-time horned female of the year, has now had nine calves, living up to the renowned functionality of Auckvale cattle and the Hereford breed. This female was born in spring 2011, and is by Auckvale Broadside,
100 cows are run across two farms
a Canadian imported embryo by AR Adams Expansion 266M and out of GH Ruby ET 92M.
Despite their successes and thrills, the Kemps are now edging away from horned breeding towards the poll strain, saying the market demands these cattle, although some horned animals will continue to be bred every year to satisfy these purchasers.
The family has already experienced success within the poll strain. The summer of 2019 saw Auckvale 1 Curly 1725R stand breed champion at the Royal Welsh Show. Again, John and Tom watched online as Adam Bowen and parents Lyn and Leslie from Nelson, Glamorgan moved to the fore of the line-up with this female, judged by Ian Shaw of Cheshire-based Halwood Herefords. Another Designer Genes success, the female was purchased by the South Wales family for 7,300gns. Out of Auckvale Curly 1271K, it is by Dendor 1 Muttley and also stood reserve breed champion at Shropshire County, reserve female at Royal Cornwall and took a second prize at the Royal Bath and West in the same year. A son of the three-time UK sire of the year, Solpoll 1 Gilbert, Dendor 1 Muttley is the first bull the brothers have bought in 20 years, with many previous herd sires entering the country as embryos. John says: “We are really pleased
with how Muttley has bred for us. His daughters are hard working.” No females have been bought since the 1990s. Having run Friesian cows in their dairy herd, Hereford-crosses were initially also run as a suckler herd but the commercial cows have nearly been phased out with the decision to go entirely pedigree. John adds: “A lot of our older cows are particularly big, but we are now focusing on a more medium sized cow, while retaining that power and strength. We just don’t need cows quite that big.”
Recent herd sires
• Mawarra Outstanding L140 (Imp
AUS) – sired by Allendale Anzac E114 • Auckvale 1 Ramesses 1711R– sired by
Normaton 1 Laertes • Auckvale 1 Revolution 1784R (Imp
CAN) – sired by TH 89T 743
Untapped 425X • Dendor 1 Muttley – sired by Solpoll 1
Gilbert and purchased from DE, ED and AL Jones Some of the cow families at Auckvale have been established for many years, including the Curly line which first joined the herd from Stan Quan’s Border herd
in 1995. The Lively family first arrived at Auckvale via Catherine’s family in the form of Brusselton 1 Lively Lucinda, the dam of which came from Clive Davies’ Westwood herd and was by Free Town Maximus. This cow bred Auckvale King-Maker 1265K which has been used widely in the herd, including their record breaking horned female.
Tom, John and Catherine Kemp have been keen attendees of the World Hereford Conference and take a great interest in the leading breeding programmes around the world. While in Canada in 2012, the conference took the Kemps to the Copper Creek Ranch in British Columbia where they saw a cow which they really liked, WLB 36N Beth, owned by the breeders’ daughter Cayley Brown. The female was shown at the World Hereford Conference show where it went on to be female champion before winning Canada’s National Show and then best female in the Hereford Champion of the World competition. John says they saw Cayley at Western Agribition after the conference and arranged a flush from the daughter of the Beth cow, CB 122L Lady B 227Z, which they saw on its dam which they admired so much while in Canada in 2012. This female went on to follow in its mother’s footsteps also winning the Hereford Champion of the World female title. Unfortunately though, the flush wasn’t as successful as the family had hoped and so they were offered a share in WLB 36N Beth’s daughter and maternal sister to Lady, CBB 4R Iggy 511C, and three flushes have been had by two different bulls following its purchase. The Beth family is now one of the most newly established at Auckvale and the family is keen to see what it produces. All heifer calves are registered with the society along with the majority of bull calves. Embryos are put into the lower end of the pedigree heifers and depending on their calving and motherability, will map out whether these recipients remain or leave the pedigree herd. As a rule, Auckvale females calve outside. Lying on the east of the country, the farm has benefitted from dry winters but weather conditions of the past few winters have made outwintering unviable. As a result, actions are currently being taken to improve and expand the farm’s winter housing to make a winter inside more manageable. Heifers are calved at two to two and a half years old, and John says they rarely pull a calf. Calving takes place mostly in spring between March and May, though some females will calve in the autumn to ensure bulls are always available for sale at a good range of ages. Weaning then occurs at nine months of age. The Kemps are some of the longest standing suppliers to the Dovecote Park Hereford Beef scheme and have been routinely sending cattle to kill at the processor’s Pontefract site. Bullocks which don’t reach the Kemps’ standards for breeding are sent to kill, but this is decreasing all the time and currently 30 to 40 per year leave the farm in this way. Some bulls are also finished and sold through Darlington Mart, which now enjoys a new site with updated facilities. Deciding which bulls to retain is based on a myriad of reasons including its dams’ milking ability, locomotion and markings. John adds: “I wouldn’t keep a bull if I was not happy with its feet or if its mother had a particularly hard calving. We certainly take EBVs into account when selecting stock but an animal has got to look the part as well.”
The Kemps operate their pedigree herd with commerciality at heart.
John says: “Showing is a bit of fun and our shop window but we don’t have the time to do too much of it. If we do show, these animals are treated no differently to the rest of the herd. Customers don’t want something which is stuffed full of concentrates and pushed.
“For a long time now, we have been trying to continuously improve the milk in our females and breed good feet and legs, while also making good use of grass. We don’t creep feed our calves so we need milky mothers.
“Auckvale Advance 790E added a lot of milk to the herd’s females which came over from Wyoming as an embryo from the Berry family. This bull was the sire of King-maker who also bred daughters with tremendous amounts of milk.”
John concludes: “There is no other breed which performs like the Hereford.”
New cow families
• Miss Trina – purchased from T Bar K,
Saskatchewan • Dominette – purchased from Jay and Janice Berry, Wyoming • Beth – purchased from Cayley
Brown, British Columbia
