Highland cattle breeder from Marcliff brings home top prizes from the region’s country shows
Marlcliff farmer Annie Perkins has been celebrating a successful summer showing prize-winning Highland cattle at the region’s country shows.
The fifth-generation farmer at Clink Cottage Farm near Bidford has achieved a decade-long ambition to regain the top spot after recovering from the ‘devastating’ impact of a bovine TB infection in 2013 when she lost her best breeding heifers.
Before that, Annie, a breeder of pedigree Highlanders was proud to have been awarded champion animal at The Three Counties Show three times.
Pedigree brindle heifer (pictured) Chiara 2nd of Thistle was crowned champion at the recent Hanbury Countryside Show in Worcestershire following a second place at the Three Counties at Malvern and Burwarton Show in Shropshire.
The beast was also awarded a fifth place at the Royal Welsh where her mother was champion Highlander in 2022.
Annie, who is also a field officer for the Highland Cattle Society, told the Herald: “I got into showing when I bought my first Highlander did it successfully for a good number of years and then we had TB. It was devastating.
“Three out of the four previous years I’d had the champion at The Three Counties Show and it’s taken me until this year to recover and get the championship again with one of Chiara’s field mates, Ellie Dhubh of Thistle.
“And that was my ultimate goal, to get back at the top of my game at The Three Counties Show.”
Annie was born and raised on the farm which began with her great great-grandfather in the late 1800s. She turned from market gardening to Highland cattle 28 years ago and also produces native and rare breed sheep and pigs.
As well as rearing livestock she has a catering business and runs the café at Alcester Rugby Club on Sundays where she uses her own meat.
“It’s about producing something that’s naturally reared and taken on slowly to give a better-quality meat. It’s had a life.”