An East Devon beef farmer has topped a nationwide competition for excellent growth rates in calves and finished cattle.

Max Parr, who farms in the Ebford/Woodbury area, won in the over 12-month category of the annual Weigh to Win competition run by farming network Breedr.

He was one of hundreds of farmers recording their cattle weights throughout the winter period between December 1 and March 31.

Max Parr looks after 1,000 cattle on his 1,500-acre beef and arable farm.

He said: “We buy store cattle and take them through for finishing.

“We keep the cattle for about 60-100 days so they aren’t here very long before we sell them on for meat.”

Predominantly a beef business, a lot of the arable land is used to grow crops for feed.

“We grow wheat, barley, maize, grass and fodder beet in rotation,” he said.

With the cattle kept predominantly indoors, they eat a mix of home-grown cereals, grass and clamp silage.

Buying all his cattle either off-farm, the main reason Max weighs them is to spot the underperformers.

He said: “When we see which ones are underperforming, we can work out why and see what we can do to help them - even if this just means selling them on to slaughter earlier in the process.”

Max said winning the Breedr competition was a bolt from the blue, adding: “I was very surprised to be honest, I thought there would be people better than me.

“But it’s definitely nice to know that we are doing a good job.”