4 minute read
Generation Game
about the land
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about the land
On his smallholding just outside Bury St Edmunds, Jeremy Perkins is on a mission to revive an archaic strain of Galloway cattle known as Riggits. Distinctive from their belted cousins by a white dorsal stripe, he is championing a complex genetic breeding programme that hopes to resurrect their ancient bloodlines.
Galloways are characteristically medium weight, stocky cattle that are easy to manage and, thanks to their double coat – an insulating downy layer and thicker, waterproof outer layer – can withstand extremes of temperature and therefore be wintered outside. They are one of our oldest native breeds and would have been found grazing the Scottish moors alongside Highland Cattle as far back as Celtic times. They typically come in a range of colours and most of the early cattle in the Galloway district would have been a mixture of black, red, brown, brindles, and even white with dark points. Breeding lines in cattle are well documented, with herd books dating back centuries, and over the years, certain Galloway markings or colour variations have been favoured, often to the detriment of others. The Belted Galloways rose to prominence in the 18th century when Dutch Lakenvelder were crossed with Black Galloways to create the fashionable solid white belt and in the mid-1800s, black dominated the colour lines as they were bred to compete with the Aberdeen Angus. Thanks to the personal preference of a few stockmen, several herds of White Galloways did survive (and within them the masked Riggit Galloway gene). In the 1980’s, the rare occurrence of
about the land
both a Riggit marked heifer and bull calf being born – along with the active encouragement of Galloway breed secretary and stalwart, the late Miss Flora Stuart - encouraged a modernday breed resurrection and finally in 2007, the Riggit Galloway Society was formed and the breed was finally recognised.
Jeremy has always loved cattle, especially the curly haired, teddy bear faced, short-legged Riggit Galloway, and twelve years ago he set up his own breeding herd to help introduce them to East Anglia. His journey to genetic maestro, stockman and farmer is not what you would expect. “I grew up in Harlow and the closest I got to farming was helping at Pet’s Corner in the local park. A local farmer donated a couple of pigs and a cow and so I would spend my weekends mucking out.” On leaving school, he did go to Writtle Agricultural College but after a short stint working on an outdoor pig farm, embarked on a successful career in events management. Then, in 2010 and looking for a new direction, he bought a smallholding in Pakenham – a pretty village that still has both a working windmill and a watermill - registered up his own TwoMills Herd of Belted and White Galloways and started investigating how to successfully breed his own bloodline of Riggits.
Working out the dominant and recessive genes of the different crosses is incredibly complicated but it was this challenge which initially sparked Jeremy’s curiosity. “I liked the fact that I couldn’t just buy a Riggit Galloway. I had to work out how to breed one! This is not as easy as I first thought as the black and belted genes are dominant so even if you breed a Riggit marked heifer, this will not necessarily breed more Riggit marked calves.”
about the land
Thankfully, Jeremy managed to get to grips with the complex science involved and is now incredibly knowledgeable about this intricate gene pool, but it has still taken him years to build up his herd, which is now one of only a few in the UK that has pure-bred Riggit Galloways. And it would seem that future generations are also in safe hands, as Jeremy’s ten-year-old son, Freddie, now has two heifers in his own ‘Fen Herd’.
Jeremy owes part of his success to the partnerships he has formed with landowners and organisations such as the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, which is using small pockets of his breeding stock to help with conservation grazing. At the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket, his Galloways were used as part of a Higher Level Stewardship grazing project and conservationist, Daisy Greenwell, also has a herd as part of a rewilding project on her wetlands down at Sutton Hoo. It is now recognised that rough pasture, and particularly marshland, benefits hugely from being grazed by larger herbivores and the Galloway are ideal for the job. Their lighter frame means they don’t poach the land in the wetter weather and as they are not selective grazers and will eat pretty much anything, they open up the land, allowing pockets of our native flora to become re-established.
There is wonderful synergism in that this ancient breed is now being used to help reintroduce traditional farming methods to Suffolk – methods that would have been as familiar to former generations of hardy stockmen as the white striped Riggits that grazed the land.
Follow Jeremy on Instagram @two mills www.twomills.uk
