Background Daniel Peyrot’s and his son Jérémy’s farms are situated near Aubusson in Creuse, 600m above sea level. Daniel started breeding limousins in 1985 taking over part of his father’s farm, Marcel. At first, he rented a small farm and had 18 registered cows (of the famous PRINCE bloodline) over fifty hectares of land. The farm expanded along the years as Daniel purchased more land and cows with Jean-Luc Kress.  In 2006, he purchased over 60 hectares of land. Today, the farm extends over 150 hectares of land (all his property now) with a herd of over 100 registered cows, with an outdoors management. In 2013, Jérémy started his own herd of 50 registered cows purchased from Mr Duron over 70 hectares of land. He wanted to be independent from his father, manage his own herd and make his own choices but they work together and share the same farming equipment.

Size, milk and depth  Since his herd is outdoors all year round, Daniel has always selected animals that are able to resist to this particular system. “Before looking at the type of animals (beefy, mixed or breedy), I am always looking for 3 essential criteria : a quiet temperament, females with a lot of milk and very good udders and animals with strong legs. These characteristics are essential for breeding cattle in difficult outdoors conditions” explains Daniel. His herd started with the famous cow MOISSON (FARFELU bloodline), the daughter of another famous cow ESCALE, from the Coudert herd in Meilhards in Corrèze. MOISSON has bred 8 daughters that are still in the herd today. Among them, AMBITIEUSE, CACAO’s dam (collected for AI by KBS). With regards to the bulls, the story starts with FARFELU, an exceptional female breeder. He produced mixed breedy type daughters, very heavy, milky with very good legs and adapting to outdoors conditions, that could be mated with any kind of bulls. Then BABOUIN (milk index 105) from the Coudert herd really stamped the herd with a mixed type production. He brought a lot of thickness of the back and improved the milk qualities of his daughters. JOYAU, Paris champion in 1998, was next. He was a great show bull with a lot of volume and width. MATADOR also produced good females with style and a lot of milk and nice udders with outstanding toplines. SIR, an OURASIE son, bred daughters with a lot of size and length, blonde with a very good temperament. OGRE, a JORDY son (Domaine des Forges) also produced many good females, of a more mixed type but still very heavy with tremendous width throughout. Daniel then bought the famous ARLIQUET together with Emmanuel Zerger. The bull produced progeny with a lot of volume, very good and wide pelvis areas, females with big carcasses and a lot of milk. DELICE from Thierry Lagautrière in Creuse produced animals of a more mixed type but still very heavy with exceptional width throughout and great pelvis areas. VIKING (AI) was born in Daniel Peyrot’s herd through the GIE Polled Excellence’s selection programme initiated by KBS more than 15 years ago. He has produced animals suited to outdoors living conditions. Today he uses FRISSON Pp and HINZ PP to further develop polled genetics.

Outdoors breeding: a specific breeding system From the start, Daniel has practiced outdoors breeding. This is a difficult system to implement. It requires a lot of technical skills and an acute sense of observation. In order to have a successful outdoors breeding system, various criteria have to been taken into account : •Not more than 20 or 22 cows in a group in order to keep stamping to a minimum and the meadow from being too damaged. •Early calvings, starting at the end of August or the beginning of September. The calving conditions are better, the days are longer and not too cold yet. Dehorning is also easier. It is also easier for the bulls to serve the cows rather than in winter when the ground is icy and they can hurt their hooves. Early calvings also mean fewer mastitis because the bags are higher up and do not get too dirty at the beginning of the winter. The calves are also older, able to ruminate and have better food efficiency on rough forage. •With regards to feeding, animals are fed hay and haylage at the hayrack. From December on, they are fed hay only in order to limit the chances of the calves catching diarrhea. They are fed haylage at the beginning of January. •Choosing the fields is also essential :  southeast exposure and natural shelters. “You cannot improvise outdoors breeding, you have to have everything planned!” says Daniel. In the middle of April, the animals go back to the meadows.

Relationship with KBS From the very beginning, Daniel has worked with Jean-Luc Kress and taken part in the Prestige or Simagena sales. He has always purchased his cows and bulls with KBS. Over the last few years, Daniel has sold more and more cattle through KBS as the demand for polled cattle increases.

The future It looks promising for Daniel Peyrot’s herd. The priority is to carry on developing polled genetics to have a 100% polled herd with top quality females. Jérémy is also looking to develop polled genetics and to increase his herd to 70 calvings.

English translation of the video

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