A Day in January
Farmer Richard's diary entry from January 2012 provides insight into herd management and welfare, environmental stewardship and the work to be done after hosting pigs.
Herd management and welfare
The routine of milking and feeding takes up a large proportion of our time on the farm.
The maize silage we grew as winter feed has proved to be poor quality. The lack of 2011 sunshine affected both the yield and the nutritional value of the crop, which in turn affects the amount of milk the cows produce.I have chalked the maize growing experiment up to experience and won’t be growing it again. This year I'll be reverting to spring barley, which is a reliable and productive crop in the South Lakes.
Changing the calving pattern to autumn calving has proved successful. 2011 was the first batch and this week’s pregnancy diagnosis session indicates that there will be 76 cows calving in the first 3 weeks of the 12 week calving period.
Cows are too large to be scanned from the outside of the body so the vet wears a headset with a screen which picks up images from the ultrasound probe inserted into the uterus. The cow is scanned around 30 days after insemination. If she is pregnant the vet will find the embryo (at this stage about the size of a 10p piece) and will check for a heart beat.
It took 1½ hours to check the cows, not that we were clock-watching or anything…
The 14-15 week old calves are ready to be moved to the young stock accommodation. Two years ago we kept 2 pigs at one end of the building and in true piggy fashion they rooted into everything and caused some damage. New cubicles (partitions) and a hay rack have been installed and the lying area refurbished. The older calves will stay under cover here until April when, fingers crossed, there will be a bit of grass for them to eat in the fields.
A monthly job is milk recording. A sample of milk from each cow is taken at morning and afternoon milking on consecutive days. The milk is sent to the national milk laboratories at Harrogate. It is tested for butterfat, protein and somatic cell counts (a measure of the white blood cells in the milk which tells us the likelihood of the cow developing mastitis).
We choose to monitor the individual cow’s milk for a few reasons, one of which is that milk rich in solids is valuable to one of our purchasers, Dale Farm in Kendal. They make yogurts and desserts for which milk solids are needed.
The sheep
A ewe’s pregnancy is about 5 months. The rams were put in with the flock in October and stayed for 6 weeks. There were 2 Blue Faced Leicester rams with the Swaledales, to breed mules. One we borrowed from the Yorkshire Dalesand the other we bought. There was a considerable size difference between the 2 boys so inevitably they were named Dave and Goliath.
There was a Charolais ram who ran with the Mules and the Zwartbles ram (pictured) went with the Zwartbles ewes. This Dutch breed is relatively new to Britain. Its white stripe on black face and white socks make it very attractive.
Environmental stewardship
Until 50 years ago hedges were essential for stock proofing a field. Wire fences provide a reassuring back up now, but the hedges on the farm still get laid in the traditional way every 15-20 years.
Hedges provide shelter from sun and rain for the grazing animals, habitat for small mammals and feeding sites for birds. Aside from that hedges just belong in this landscape, which would be bleak without them.
A mechanical hedge cutter maintains the shape and density of the hedge every year or two.
Filming
John Craven and the Countryfile crew came along to talk to me about organic farming, the market for organic produce, and what the future holds. Those of us old enough to remember John Craven's Newsround were star struck but young Wendy and young Paul needed a crash course in TV history.
