Percivale South Devons: a stud built on a solid legacy

The Roets family of the Eastern Cape's Barkly East district has been associated with South Devon cattle for approximately 90 years. Yet it was only in 2017 that PD Roets registered a stud. Mike Burgess visited him to find out more about his commitment to the selective breeding of South Devons in this cold, mountainous area.

- Mike Burgess

"Our family's long association with the South Devon breed has now been registered in a system of science and measurement," says PD Roets, the fourth generation of his family to farm these cattle in the Eastern Cape highlands, but the first to register a stud. This took place five years ago.

"I love the South Devon and wanted to better manage the breed's [genetic] potential in my beef operation. There are costs associated [with having a stud], but they're a small price to pay for crucial benefits like being more scientific about selecting cows. You can't farm effectively by bringing in cows at weaning and culling the poor-looking ones, because they could be the best-producing animals."

CONTINUING A SOUTH DEVON LEGACY

Today, Roets's South Devon enterprise consists of 120 medium-framed stud and 80 commercial breeding females. It forms part of an extensive livestock operation, which includes Merinos, on 3 600ha in the Barkly East district. Part of this area comprises the Roets family farm, Percivale.

The South Devons are run exclusively on the veld, while 50ha of pastures are used for the lambing of 900 Merino ewes and to fatten livestock before they are culled for the market.

Roets's great-grandfather, Jannie, started crossing South Devons with Afrikaners on the family farm in the 1930s. This programme laid the foundation for his son, JPJ, and Jannie (his grandson, PD's father) to run hardy and adapted commercial South Devons in the rugged and cold mountainous country of the extreme north-eastern Cape.

"They're medium-framed cattle that can walk the mountains," says Roets. "Also, the cold can be harsh on cattle, but the South Devon has a thick coat, which it loses in summer."