John and Teenie Rennie, with their family, came to the Isle of Gigha in 1968 to farm Tarbert Farm. Now in 2025 the farm is run by their two youngest children Emma and Mark, along with Emma’s son Sean.
Tarbert is mostly a dairy farm with 60 crossbreed cows, which consists of Whitebred Shorthorns, Jerseys, Fleckvieh semmental and some Friesians, all of which are homebred.
We also have 20 beef Hereford cows and at the moment 2 Hereford bulls (Charlie the oldest boy and his son Frankie)
Emma’s youngest son Mark has 7 sheep, 8 hens, 6 ducks, 2 geese and the most recent addition for his Christmas present 2 Woolly pigs!
Our cows are outside grazing on fresh green grass throughout the summer and have their silage in the winter months. In the winter they can either stay indoors or go out and lie on the grass, 9 times out of 10 they will choose outdoors, but if the weather is fierce, they will be shut inside where they can sleep in cubicles with a sawdust bed.
Farming is a hard way of life, but there is no other job we would rather be doing!
