Toplines and Tales

One of the most populous sheep in UK, the Blackie has a long history among the Scottish hills.  Mathew Hamilton's Woolfords flock have been at the top of the breed for nearly 150 years, and he talks us through the merits and diversity of the Scottish Blackface.

Quite a bumper podcast this week as we cover the Cheviot sheep, a breed which comes in a number of different formats. Firstly my guest Tom Tennant takes us through the origins of the Cheviot and then the South Country Cheviot of which he is currently president. Then we hear from Rod McKenzie who has an unrivalled knowledge of the North Country Cheviot, as we hear about the different variants of the breed, and people and animals who got to where it is now.

A great history lesson in this week's episode where we look at the indigenous cattle breed from Wales, the Welsh Black. With a history dating back to the Bronze Age to winning the Burke Trophy at the Millennium, and supplying a branded product to a nation, our guest Alwyn Jones give a superb account of these wonderful cattle.

With origins going back nearly 3000 years, the dark Red Devon breed of cattle offers a rich history from draft animal, excellent low input cow through to high quality marbled beef. My guest Becky Hurd talks us through the tremendous merits of the breed as well as its journey through time to a breed now on the up.

This week I am actually being interviewed on someone else's show. 

Click the link below to tune into Cannon Brown putting me under the microscope, when we discuss my early years in livestock as well as careers in software, writing, and generally blagging my way through life!! https://theshowpod.podbean.com/e/andy-frazier/

This week we discuss one of the UK's newest breeds of native livestock, the Luing, with breeder and breed society chairman, Neil McGowan. A fascinating story how the three Cadzow brothers bought an island on the west of Scotland and then developed a breed of cattle that would suit their own requirements as well as the conditions, creating this highly successful modern hill cow.

This week we chat with top Longhorn breeder, Peter Close, as well as prominent  auctioneer and Longhorn enthusiast, Clive Roads from McCartneys. With a breed that has been around for hundreds of years, it is not surprising it has had a roller-coaster ride, and we hear of its ups and downs, since Bakewell’s time in the early 1800s, to the modern suckler cow breeder of today.

For a relatively little known breed these days, the Southdown holds a massive place marker in history, not just as a terminal sire, but as the father of dozens of other breeds, worldwide, including the Suffolk, Dorset and Hampshire, in fact most sheep with the word ‘Down’ in their title. It has also evolved many French breeds, such as the Charollais and Berichon. My guest Jonathan Long is the current breed society chairman, and shares the history of this great breed with us.

My guest Clive Davies and I discuss the merits of Robert Bakewell,  possibly one of the most influential livestock breeders in history, not just for what he bred but for his pioneering ways and the legacy he left from his experimental methods. As well as creating the Leicester sheep and the Shire horse, he will be most remembered for developing the Longhorn breed of cattle.

This week in another special episode, my pals and I single out a handful of influential absent friends that have passed during the year 2021, each one of them a legend in the livestock industry, and raise a dram to them. Namely, Donald Biggar, Harry Sleigh, Alistair Houston, David Dick and Jack Ramsay. 

Happy New Year from Toplines and Tales