As we finished calving in early May with a couple of cows holding on for as long as possible. We started breeding in the heifers on the 24th of April, we carried out a synchronisation after 7 days but carried on with visible heat detection and served all but one heifer that the bull served this one at a later date.

The cows started breeding on the 1st May, we used scratch cards on all the cows and carried out heat detection whilst milking in the parlour, we have decided to AI ourselves this year and with enough capable people within the team it will get the whole team involved.

We carried out an AI refresher course through Lic which was very benificial for all the team and myself, we found it got everyone thinking about breeding prior to the planned start of breeding and just got you back in correct mindeset for day one of breeding.

We have taken two cuts of silage, first cut from the milking platform and a week later the next cut from 85 acres we have that is not grazable by milking cows a few miles away, we have been very happy with crop size and quality from the first cut and the next cut we allowed it to bulk up more due to going into the clamp where our dry cows are housed, so potentially lesser quality crop but perfect for dry cows.

We applied 3000 gallons of dirty water across all silaged ground on the platform and applied 40kgs N of blend 24-0-14-7.5 on this area too. We continue to follow the cows with fertiliser but only 20 kgs due to us being on a quick round of <18 days.

Three groups of heifer calves ( 81) have been put to grass and been weaned but will continue to have cake at 1kg head. These calves are on some quality pasture that had been baled in April to give them some nice clean grass to go at.

We continue to AI the cows which is going well, we havent achieved the 90% submission rate in 21 days, but we are confident we aren’t seeing lots of short returns and as we complete week 4 we are not seeing lots and lots of return heats. We will continue to serve for a total of 12 weeks, 6 weeks AI and 6 weeks Hereford stock bulls in two teams of three on 24hr rotation. We will scan mid July to see what our 6 week ICR is.

Milk, the cows are doing around 27ltrs+ on average with some cows doing 40+ltrs, we are feeding the herd 2kgs of 14% cake within the parlour and grazing 3000 cover fields (which is still lush from rapid regrowth) so the residual are good. We aim to graze some of the silaged field and swap them back in the rotation and take out other paddocks for long term silage the aim is to take a cut of every paddock at least once per season.

In April we managed to spray off 12 ha and spread all our box muck on it a week later, we ploughed / rolled and power harrowed and finally power harrowed and drilled it with 15kgs of grass seed to the acre, the varieties we used were Aberchoice/Abergain/Aberzeus. The grass has taken well and germinated and we had 33mm of rain on it which was great.

I always find April and May disappears really quickly in our system we operate, so this year it was a special occassion, I turned 40 which somehow arrived very quickly in my eyes. Lucy was amazing in managing to sort out a surprise birthday party with so many friends and family there, which was amazing! Also some time away and a game of golf with family! My cousin and his wife bought me a pair of guinea foal, which was pay back for buying them a pair of pigs for their wedding present and putting them in there garden whilst they were away on honeymoon. We even managed to swing into Bletchley Park for a visit on the way home, which is an truly amazing place and it makes you appreciate what was done to win the war from these dedicated people.

How a month vanishes at this time of year is so unreal, April is just around the corner! Winter has passed #hopefully🤞 as we start thinking about breeding season approaching. After some damping weather in late February and early March (which we needed), we housed the cows and on/off grazed for a couple of weeks which makes you appreciate that amazing February we had for an early turnout and not having to do much on/off grazing.

Grass has been growing very well and getting out in early Febuary has been a great result with the regrowth looking good for the pending second round. We have grazed 75% of the farm and we won’t hit the 100% mark as we have had two weeks of positive growth of 42 and 54 kgs/dm/ha with a demand of approximatley 30kgs/dm/ha! We have removed silage from the diet and dropped the cake in the parlour to 2kgs/head/per day.

We have started to take surplus paddocks out for silage and we have started to roll outlying silage fields to roll all the stones in and flatten any grazing damage. Fencing repairs and general farm tidy up is in full swing. God I love this time of year!

The 12> month old bulling heifers have had their Leptovoid, Bvd and Huskvac and after a short period back inside whilst we had some wet weather are backing out grazing and starting to bull like mad.

The cows are starting to hit the residuals now the silage and a reduction in parlour feed has taken place. We know that it is our goal to hit that 1500 residual after every grazing but whilst buffer feeding and wet weather conditions take place it can be challenging to control so many variables, with that in mind the focus is always on the cows. The constant questions in our minds, intakes? are we fufiling their needs! Its a balancing act and the driver for any grazing farmer #hittingthesweetspot

The calves are starting to grow and some groups are now on oad (once a day) feeding and starting to eat their creep and will be heading to be weaned in a week or two.

Droning on!

Its great to get the drone out and start getting some footage of the cows coming in for milking, its still one of my favourite things to do on the farm, getting the cows in gives you time to think, look and assess what’s going on! Don’t get me wrong I am a full believer in getting the Battlatch on for the mornings but getting the cows in in an afternoon cannot be beaten! #qualitythinkingtime

It was really nice to finally get a frost, we always think it does wonders for the grass in nutriliasing the taste (wether its true or not). Once you have frost the cows always seem to graze really well. We have a bunch of late calvers out at grass assisting on the grazing platform to eat some of those winter pastures not utilised yet.

As we head into April we will be doing a team AI refresher course to make sure everyone is up to date with the current procedures and we continue to focus on the cows and make sure the team is in the right place for the up coming breeding season. Our second round of grazing starts on Tuesday and we have topped up some silage ground and some paddocks that we have removed early from the next round with 60kgs of Nitram per/ha.

As we start calving we always have the lull before we get going! It’s like waiting for Christmas!! The girls are all dried off now for an 8 week period and the focus of my mind gets to thinking about when we can get back to Grass To Milk, the key driver of our business. Spring Calvers are driven by wanting to reduce their workload as quick as possible and turning the cows out in the spring asap and this the biggest saving of labour and time in the coming month, which lets the time be allocated into other areas.

So the calves have started to appear we have had quite an even spread of bull calves and heifers. All our bull calves are kept and not like “fake news” they’re not being shot, all the bull calves are sold to a family member who will take them on and finish them and be sold into the food chain at 23/24 months old.

The heifer calves are kept for the next generation of the herd!

Late Jan…

Luckily as part of the Arla Next Programme I was able to visit Denmark for two days to engage with farmers from Denmark Sweden Germany and the Uk. Lots of great discussions about the problems we face as a cooperative and as farmers going forward. We also learnt lots about Arla as a cooperative and the structure and the future of a global markets in developing countries. We also spent some time in the Arla innovation centre learning about the future products and the way people eat and shop compared to traditional ways, we now live in a time where we want quicker smaller meals and products that will fit our “on the go lifestyle!”

It was eye opening to understand that all the problems we face in the UK are global problems, as we sat and talked to farmers from other countries the same topics we talk about at home like employment and trending fads that attack our industry are common across these countries and everybody was very focused on continuing to operate to the highest standards and farm to the “Arla” standards.

These things will be sent to challenge us, but they will not break us, we will continue to focus on great welfare and standards that we work to and this will give clarity to the outside world and help people understand how and where their food is produced.

It was a real positive experience to meet some progressive uk farmers and understand their businesses from very different farming systems but with the same passions!

Cows Out…..

Now as we head into late January, we all know exactly what I am thinking, will the ground conditions and the weather gods align!!! Will we be out grazing early February!!

We luckily missed the snow in the last week of January which would not be good sat on the fields readily waiting to melt. It’s on…… I have sat and annoyed my Lucy (my wife) for 3 days now….. What do you think …. Can we….Can we …. GET THE COWS OUT!!

3rd Feb….

It’s a go, cows out, we have turned out twice in 4 years this early. I cannot put words to it how you feel when you turn your cows out. It’s a mental uplift!!

Next is to setup the Spring Rotational Planner and get some fencing done…….

As we enter into 2019 our focus comes onto calving, being a spring calving herd we have all our cows calving in a 12 week block from late January to late April. We have to prepare for lots of work throughout this period. The focus of all the team on the farm is to look after all our girls to the highest standards. We calve around 420 cows a year in the spring which is challenging in many ways, we run a simple grassed based system where cows are grazed from February till late November. We raise all our youngstock on the farm and our dairy bull calves are sold to go to beef.

Early January ….

The reality of that calving is imminent, lets get sh*t sorted, we have to clean and prepare all the calving pens / clean all calf feeders and generally get everything ready for the busy period to arrive. Last year has been super busy with lots going on the farm, a new building going up, new cubicles going into sheds, a new 25k ltr bulk tank, new feeders in the parlour

and a real upgrade to the farm facilities. We also went through a serious drought that hadn’t been seen for 40 years which was very challenging and tough on people physically and mentally throughout the industry.

So now with the new shed 90% complete we have our first few heifers in and we have had two heifer calves this weekend which is a great feeling to get started and get 2019 calving  season off to a good start.