GAEC Perrodin was founded in 1998 by Joelle and Didier Perrodin, joined in 2018 by their son Clément. The farm is located in Burgundy, Saône et Loire, more precisely in the town of Saint Eugene, on the edge of the Morvan massif.

At the creation of the GAEC activity was centered around a horticultural production workshop and the breeding was limited to 40 mothers on 80 hectares.

From 2008, horticultural activity declining until its total shutdown in 2011, the GAEC has reoriented to livestock with a continuous increase in livestock to reach in 2018 a herd of 150 Aubrac cows registered Aubrac Herd Book on a surface of 300 hectares of natural meadows.

We operate 300 hectares of meadows on granitic and sandy soils, thus drying and overall low agronomic potential. The production of cereals on these soils seems irrelevant and we have made the choice of 100% grass, seeking to maximize value this resource and limiting the purchase of concentrates to a minimum.

Nevertheless, these soils have a great advantage, they are very strong, which allows us to winter half of the herd outdoors in good conditions for animals, on healthy plots and with many natural shelters.

That's why our calvings are divided into two periods:

• 100 from August 15th to October 15th

• 50 from January 1st to March 1st

This allows us to offer for sale all year long bulls ready to serve. We have also adapted our production. In addition to the sale of male and female fro breeding, we decided to extend the production cycle, particularly on the male, by reducing the production of weanlings in favor of beef bulls and oxes sold at the butcher's shop.

These choices allow us today to master the veterinary, mechanization and food purchases and thus invest in other positions such as genetics.

We bought our first Aubrac in 1999 following a deviation on the motorway of the holidays, seduced above all by the aesthetics of these cows. We did not imagine how much luck would do things! We were immediately won over by these stubby and moderately sized cows, whose breeding qualities and performances during periods of food stress are remarkable.

For example, its birth facilities allow us to calve two thirds of the herd outside sometimes 3-4 km from the farm, and thanks to the fertility of Aubrac cows we are close to a 100% fertility without supplementation of the cows. This hardiness is crucial for our farm because it allows us to achieve good numerical productivity while limiting production costs.

But the Aubrac breed is not limited to hardiness, it is also an efficient breed especially in the valuation of the grass. Over the years we have realized that with grass and patience it is possible to bring Aubrac animals to a very good market value. The lengthening of our production cycles results from this observation. With these qualities, the breed knows a significant boom in France and abroad last past years. This racial dynamic is important for our exploitation because it generates a certain demand for breeding animals both male and female.

We have chosen to position ourselves in this market by joining the UPRA Aubrac and the VA4 performance audit in 2008, and by being vigilant to the health status of our livestock (IBR A, vaccination BVD, paratuberculosis research). This in order to offer for sale all year long,  breeding male and female with the most possible guarantees.

Genetics is a passion for us, but for both commercial and breeding animals, it is a key performance factor and we pay close attention to it. We direct the selection within our flock to have animals that correspond as best as possible to our operating system and the request of our customers, while remaining within the framework of the race guidelines defined by the Union Aubrac since that our livestock is fully registered to the Herd Book Aubrac.

Concretely our main axes of selection are:

• productivity (ease of birth, fertility, milking ability)
  
• looking for animals of moderate size 
  
• the docility

We work these axes while ensuring the conservation of Aubrac Breed hardiness qualities  (legs, depth of chest, longevity ...) and we are attached to the aesthetics of our animals because we have the chance to work with a breed of beautiful cows!

More information aubrac breed www.race-aubrac.com