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About Us

Borland Farm is situated at 1200 ft in beautiful Glenshee between Blairgowrie and Braemar. We rear pedigree Highland Cattle and Belted Galloway Cattle as well as Zwartble and Hebridean sheep.

The farm comprises approximately 2600 acres of heather moorland and 400 acres of rough grazing and improved grassland. There is also a little over 200 acres of mixed woodland. The main farm steading sits at 1200 ft above sea level and the hills rise to a peak of 2440 ft at the summit of Mount Blair.

The Highland Cattle Fold on Borland farm was started in 1996 and shortly afterwards the foundation stock of the current Hebridean flock arrived.The Highalnd Cattle fold is founded on old blood lines of all recognised colours. The emphasis is on blood lines from the Western Isles of Scotland including Mull and Uist. Folds featuring in our pedigrees include; Achnacloich, Ardbhan, Balinoe, Glenogle, Cladich, Ormsary, Torloisk and Woodneuk.

After having seen Belted Galloway cattle on a farm visit in 2005, it was decided to start a small fold of pedigree Belted Galloway cattle.

Borland Farm also subscribes to Scottish Food Quality Certification (SFQC) standards and has attained for many years now, full membership to the their Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) farm assured scheme.

Our livestock is well suited to being reared outdoors all year round without prophylactic chemicals or intensive practices, in a gentle and extensive manner. Their unselective grazing and foraging habits are acknowledged by conservation authorities to enhance the flora on hill ground and therefore improve the habitat for wildlife. Our animals have been raised in a traditional manner and will have had a guaranteed quality of life. They are allowed to develop and grow at a rate dictated by nature and the environment..

We produce our own haylage for winter feeding. An addition to the farm stock in 1998 which fits in well, is Hebridean sheep which assist in control of obnoxious weeds such as ragwort and their close cropping of grass assists seeding with clover for natural nitrogen generation. They are the one breed of sheep that can improve heather growth on moorland. We have a great interest in improving the habitat of our moorland areas which until 1996 were heavily grazed with black-faced sheep. These have been replaced by the highland cattle and the changes in the heather biomass has been monitored under a joint project between The Game Conservancy Trust and the World Pheasant Association. Already major improvements in heather regeneration have been recorded as well as improvements in red grouse numbers and other moorland birds.

Articles under the title of ‘The Learning Curve‘ record the problems of setting up a Highland cattle fold and make a useful introduction for newcomers. Borland Farm has specialised in studying the benefits of Highland cattle and Hebridean sheep for conservation grazing with research help on the farm carried out by The Game Conservancy Trust.

History

Black cattle represent 40% of the Borland Fold since black was the original colour of highland cattle. Even in 1895 when the Highland Cattle Society was formed they still represented over 50% of the cattle registered. Numbers of registered black bulls dropped to nil in the 1940s but has since recovered. We run a black fold within the Borland Fold with Callum Seoladair Dubh 2nd of Killochries (M7249) having been used in 2003 leaving us a lot of good quality black heifers, we then moved on to a home bred bull Black Prince 2nd of Borland (M8891)  in 2004 and Albert of St Ingbert (M8026) is being used in 2005.

For the main fold we began by using Joseph of Ardbhan (M8324) from North Uist. He was one of only three dun bulls registered. He is the grandson of the famous Joseph of Cladich and has produced top quality calves of all colours. He has now long since moved on and he was succeded byTalisman 2nd of Glengorm (M8703) produced large beefy bull calves and mainly yellow and white heifers. Talisman was sold in February 2005. After Talisman followed Donnachadh Ruadh of Achnacloich (M7950) an outstanding bull who we kept until the end. The majority of his heifers are all most all are the same lovely dark red colour as Donnachadh. To follow Donnachadh we purchased Neil of Dunvegan in February 06, Neil is quite a character and has managed to get 3 years worth of breeding crammed into 2 years!!! During those two years he left us a higher proportion of heifers to bulls, so after a busy 2 years we decided to move him on. To replace Neil we purchased Hector of Grisiphol at the Oban sale in February 2008. He is a lovely quiet bull with a little tinge of Brindle through him. We are lucky and have got some really nice calves from him.