The Dyfri Herd of Full French Pedigree Limousin Cattle was established in the early 1980’s by us, David and Joan Edwards and son, Aled on our farm here at Cilycwm, in the unspoilt upper Tywi valley in Mid Wales.
Pedigree breeding had always had a place at Home Farm having been the home to a herd of pedigree Hereford cattle for much of the previous two decades.
The change to Limousin came about because of a need to derive better returns from our commercial suckler herd, and in May 1982 a French bred bull “Ramadan” was bought at Carlisle and his resultant progeny converted us to Limousin.
The first Limousin females were bought in 1984 with the purchase of the entire select Derri Herd of 5 cows and followers. These proved to be a fortuitous first purchase with 4 of the cows going on to form strong cow families in the herd.
After “stumbling” on such good females, a decision was made to purchase only the best breeding females in the breed and to embrace the then new technology of embryo transfer to quickly build up the cow families. These exceptional females were found at the sales from the Tanhill and Oakley Herds.
In order to fix a type within the herd it was decided to acquire top Stock Bulls to follow Ramadan. This has culminated in the acquisition of Jockey who is arguably the top sire of his generation in the UK, with his females being equal in quality to his males. More about jockey.
In recent years we have used some of the leading AI sires available to supplement the diverse types of bull required in the market.
The whole herd is fully performance recorded and the young stock is ultrasonically scanned for eye muscle and fat depth. Full performance data is available on all stock.
The aim of our breeding policy has always been primarily to produce bulls that are growthy, muscular animals while retaining the important trait of calving ease and maternal traits. We feel that we have achieved this to a considerable degree through the careful selection of Stock bulls on strong female lines.