Owd Fred's Blog

Under achievement of output big style

I read the Farmers Weekly, ov read it all me life,
Read it in the good times, and read it through the strife,
In its words and pictures, brings us all the news,
Tells us of our leaders, n' tells us of their views.

This farm could double its output and produce food for human consumption and help to stave off shortages, but then it's only when we have shortages that we get a realistic price. We can't win which ever way we go.

In the late nineteen fifties the Church Farm buildings were home to forty two dairy cows, and about thirty young stock of varying ages, plus one stock bull.

The old house, half timbered, old hand made tiles on the roof

These were supported on ninety six acres, made up of forty five acres of permanent pasture and meadow land. The remaining land was either three to five year grass leys rotated with corn and root crops plus kale.  The older grass leys would be ploughed out and winter wheat planted the rotation then following the wheat would be planted to turnips, mangols, and kale.  Following on the year after it would be barley under sown to a grass ley again.

The night pasture for the dairy cows was through the gate at the bottom of the yard and across the sleeper bridge over the Millian Brook. Day pastures were down the road and through the ford (although most preferred to queue up and cross the foot bridge), then up the Moor Lane.  Here there was the Gravely bank, the Hazel Graze, the Moor cover field and below that was the Iron Dole.  All these fields were on the right hand side of the lane.  On the left side was the three Ash Pits Fields, then on down to this side of the railway bridge was the Pingles on the right and the Fosters on the left.  Over the bridge was thirty acres of river meadows, on the uneven meadows the young stock would spend the summer, the rest would be mown for hay.

In the autumn the barn should have two bays of hay and two bays of corn in sheaves (this was before combines came to this area).

Deliveries of cattle food were unloaded directly into the loft; roots, hay & straw were dropped into the "Pop hole" below. The roof on the left of the picture was the double cowshed where it held twenty six cows

At the far end of the stack yard (from the "pop" hole) up the road side the mangols were stored and covered over to protect them from frost.  Kale and turnips were harvested daily and fed up until Christmas then the through to spring it was the stored mangols.

On the right just through the yard gate was the main byre, where twenty six cows were tied up for milking, it was a modern shed at that time having thirteen up each side.  In winter they would stay in over night, and on cold wet winter day brought in again for days as well after a spell of exercise.  In front of the cows was a fodder bing where the cows could be fed from the front with hay and mangols, access to these passages was from either end.

The Turnip Shed  1960.  This shed had a pop hole into the stack yard where the root crop could be tipped down into the shed and shoveled into the pulper seen here, and bales of straw and hay were brought in that way for feeding the cows.

 At the bottom of the yard a door led into a stable for three shires horses. Next door up was a small loose box sometimes used as a bull pen. The third door was a cowshed for four cows and the corner door was cowshed for three cows.   The large shed on the right housed twenty six dairy cows. The Rota Spreader hooked to the tractor parked under a lip of concrete so muck could be pushed directly into it.

The second shed down from the road side was the engine shed where the milking pump was situated and the mill for grinding the corn, and in the third was a cowshed for three cows. the fourth for four cows  A door out onto the yard took you down some long steps to a very narrow loose box where the bull was often kept, then the bottom large door was the stable for three shires.  With horses having gone out of fashion the stalls were removed and then was used as a loose box for rearing calves. 

Along the bottom of the yard was a low tile roofed shed for nine cows, these being a bit spread out from the other cows, it was often filled with dry cows, and eased the amount of walking about with the milking buckets.  Up the yard adjoining that shed was two more loose boxes for young stock, and more recently, the top one was converted into a purpose built bull pen.

Along the top of the yard behind the house is three cart shed then the garage for the car and a large loose box, and at the end under the old yew tree was the work mans loo with the wooden seat over a bucket.

In the centre of the yard was the midden as in all farm yards locally.  The sheds could be cleaned out all winter and only a short way to wheel it.  On frosty days the muck ruck would be shifted and spread on the next years root ground. Now in the drawing it was modernized so muck went out every day in the muck spreader.

 In 1985 Church farm land was amalgamated to adjacent farms and the house and building sold.  With the ever decreasing numbers of people working on farms, village centre farms became unviable. Cattle needed to be herded out to pasture each day and back for evening milking along the village roads. 

At its height there were six herds on the roads of the village between the time of 8 and 9am and again between 3.30 and 5.30pm over 200 dairy cows altogether. There was a cowman for each herd plus at least one helper, twelve men (Today 200 is a one man job), then the Wagoner (or tractor driver as he was latterly known) would do all the off yard jobs.  All the cottages in the village were tied to a particular farm and one next to the school was tied to the blacksmiths shop.

So it was after twenty five years at Church Farm we moved a hundred yard up to Yews Farm. This was two hundred and fifty acres but not suitable for a dairy unit, or should I say not suitable to extend the dairy cows beyond forty or so cows. This was when we went over to suckler cows and grew quite a lot of cereals, twenty five years on again most of the land is in one stewardship scheme or other, we produce no wheat or barley, and part of the arable land we have a contractor who ploughs , works, and plants maize which is then chopped by a neighbouring farmer for his dairy herds winter feed.

In younger hands and a bit of encouragement from the government to produce food, this farm could double it output and produce food for human consumption again and help to stave off shortages, but then its only when we have shortages that we get a realistic price. We can't win which ever way we go.

I Read the Farmers Weekly

I read the Farmers Weekly, ov read it all me life,
Read it in the good times, and read it through the strife,
In its words and pictures, brings us all the news,
Tells us of our leaders, n' tells us of their views.

As kids we run and grabbed it, when it first arrives,
Four of us to read it, tis a wonder it survives,
It was mainly the pictures, that we liked to read,
When father picks it up, all dog eared from stampede.

The latest farm machinery, with up to date designs,
Tested on the fields and farms, n' way up steep inclines,
Powerful engines high horse power, bigger wheels to match,
Bigger ploughs and implements', and see they're up to scratch.

New foreign breeds of cattle, brought from round the world,
To compliment our native stock, at shows new flags unfurled,
Almost every year a new breed, a new cattle line to report,
The country where it's coming from, how many to import.

New sprays new seeds new ways to sow, all on test for us,
To make a better judgment, n' how to combat fun-gus,
Some are good some not quite so, its in the fields they test,
Reported in the Farmers Weekly, n' tell us which is best.

For me it's gone full circle, they've got it all on line,
Can read all what's been written, to new medium consign,
The paper one it still come through, tradition here to stay,
The good old Farmers Weekly, the farming news relay.

Countryman (Owd Fred)

The June Returns 1961

First year farming in my own right 1961

Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,
Back again for milking on long fine summer days,

Just dug out an old diary from just fifty years ago, and on looking at the page where I recorded the June Returns 1961, (a statutory form sent out by the Ministry every June) it started with Crops.

Then onto livestock

Then to the grass land and any other spurious crops that might be grown around the country

Total area was 96 acres, which was a popular acreage on the estate as four or even five farms were 96 acres or very close to it, with three others into the 120 to 140 acre bracket.

Looking back I had almost six acres of wheat and five acres of oats, and looking further down the year it was bindered and stooked in the fields. Later still in the diary, into the winter we had the contractor came with his threshing set and stationary baler, combines were only just getting about, it was a contractor that had the only one in our area.

Only two year before in 1959 when I was at farm college, we were taught how to pull and top sugar beet by hand, (a job we had been doing for three years at home) the students and the college farm workmen had cleared the beet off the headlands then a sugar beet harvester was brought in, the first one I had seen and only one in our part of the world, on trial, and as a demonstrator.

Back to the ‘returns’, two acres of marrow stem kale was drilled and singled by hand hoe, and some new sown grass seeds, and  short term leys, finishing up with the balance of acreage as permanent pasture.

On to the labour section, one twenty year old man who took home his first wage packet from me £7-10s-6d , or if you bring it up to new money values, £7-52 and a half p. for a whole weeks work.

The cattle amounted to thirty three cows, four in calf heifers, one Friesian bull, eight yearlings, and thirteen heifer calves. That was the limit of stalls we had at that time as the cows would be tied by the neck with a chain to each stall.

It was around this time that a new concept of housing cows other than stalls and deep bedding had just been invented, the cow cubicle. The dimensions were critical and great publicity was give to the idea in the farming press, I built a small row of cubicle stalls free standing with its own roof as a lean-to along side the cow shed. They proved very successful and some ten years later purchased and put up a sixty four stall cubicle house that we erected our selves; every other stall extended up to support the roof.

Pigs, we had seven store pigs for fattening, no sheep, and two hundred laying hens kept in a deep litter poultry pen, and eleven geese that ran out to the stream that runs close by in the fields behind the farm.

Another section in the front of the diary was the amount of milk sold that year

This showed we were mainly spring calving, peaking in April when the cows went out to grass. The bottom line added up and divided by 33 cows make an average of 830 gallons per cow, the aim in them days of recorded herds were a thousand gallons per cow.

This was a first year, perhaps a greater number of first calf heifers, and a certain amount was used to suckle the thirteen calves reared to at least two months of age. I shall have to look back at the national milk records to see when I started recording, as that shows what each cow produces, not how much is sold.

The Cow Chain

At one time cows were all tied up, in stalls to milk and feed,

Each one knew its own place, not much room indeed,

When young they didn’t like it, but soon learned where to go,

Twice every day it was for them, walking too and fro.

Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,

Back again for milking on long fine summer days,

Walk into their own shed, and finding their own stall,

Standing there to be chained, got to chain them all.

Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,

Once they know their own side, one word n’ they discern,

“Come over” spoken to them , they know your coming through,

 The pair will part, n’ chain them up, n’ stand their cud to chew.

A scoop of corn while milking, then wait till milked the lot,

Loosed off the chains they wander, out to pasture we allot,

Clean the sheds and clean the stalls, till milking comes again,

For to tie them up you always need, good strong shiny chain.

Countryman

Low Cost Production, Milk Marketing Board 1962

You take up on all the latest ideas, when ya young and think you can improve even on them. But as time and experience will learn you, let someone else try them out (new ideas), and if they are still good ideas a few years later that’s the time to take them up. Some expensive mistakes have been made over the years, when caution would have been the prudent thing to do.

Over stocking is one of them, it started when I joined a Milk Marketing Board scheme called ‘Low Cost Production’. The co-ordinator called every month to up date all the figures and the different margins, from cost per gallon over bought in feed, production from home grown feeds, and labour costs. These were all logged into a chart with about twenty two other participating farms with the best performing ones at the top and those with lowest margins at the bottom. Of coarse each farm/farmer was incognito and you could only identify your own farm by a code number issued by the co-ordinator.

Much to my disgust I seemed to always be in the lower quarter of the chart, and so there was great incentive to get nearer to the top.  More fertilizer was bought, the cows were strip grazed rigidly with a back fence the nitrogen was applied for the re-growth, and a little later in the scheme we were encouraged to lay it all out in twenty one paddocks, one paddock a day and again fertilized after grazing. This all went on for just over four years, the cows numbers increased, stock feed potatoes and carrots were fed to supplement the winter feed, and we mixed our own dairy corn from a recommended ration compounded up from straights and costed out

It was made up of

The other ingredient were weighed up in the loft and tipped through a convenient hole in the floor. The pile was then mixed by hand with a huge shovel turning it three times

The cost worked out at £19- 7s- 6d per ton as against a propriety dairy cake of between £60 & £70 pound a ton.

All calculations were done literally by hand, it was before calculators came out and the co-ordinator added  subtracted, divided, and multiplied everything on a slide rule.

Low Cost Production, Milk Marketing Board 1962 

The chart above is the original or should I say the initial one filled in by Mr Woodriffe  our co-ordinator/ adviser, and it was November 1962 almost fifty years ago.

I may be wrong but going on the figures above my mixture comes out at just below £20 a ton and the Diary Cake at the top come out at over £60 a ton, not quite right me  thinks. If any keen costing students or older 'pharts' like me can get it any different please let me know. I have all the invoices for the soya, fishmeal, groundnut etc. so I could check that for prices

There is an average line at the bottom that would not scan, and lined up should read

                13.4   /  9.94  /  6.98  /  0.64  /  17.56  /  5.46  /  64  /  49  /  2.12  /  3.03  /  9.07  /  0.61

  This is the matching resultant chart that we got back at the end of the month, that is my line third line from the bottom of the table, code /159. Margin per gallon 9.85, and 39 in herd, 35 in milk.

This was the only time I managed to top my group April 1964 see code /159. We had turned the cows out onto some early grass; all the cows were in milk. It was only through the summer months that I could compete on the league table. Eventually I found out that some of the top ones in the winter had larger acreages of stubbles and sugar beet fields to range over and young stock away on another area of land, giving them an unfair advantage over me stuck tightly on 96 acres with quite a few young stock and follower.

By the report from the MMB and the farming press it was a great success, for me we raised our output and margins, but ended up with a whole herd of very thin cows, some almost skeletons. Another aspect was to calve the heifers down at two years old, some of which had not attained the required growth to reach a reasonable lactation.

The calving index was another thing that was important in these calculations, our was around 370 day calving when we started, and as the cows got into a lower and lower state so this rose to around the 400day mark.

So all in all you reap what you sow, you cannot keep robbing the producer, in this case the cow, and occasionally in life its better to back off a little, work under a bit less pressure, the cows and yourself are a lot fitter, you may not have made your fortune, there is always someone in life who does thing better than you ( or claim to), and that has never changed all my life.

The Cow Chain

At one time cows were all tied up, in stalls to milk and feed,

Each one knew its own place, not much room indeed,

When young they didn’t like it, but soon learned where to go,

Twice every day it was for them, walking too and fro.

Out to daytime pastures, to distant fields to graze,

Back again for milking on long fine summer days,

Walk into their own shed, and finding their own stall,

Standing there to be chained, got to chain them all.

Each stall holds a pair of cows, left and right they learn,

Once they know their own side, one word n’ they discern,

“Come over” spoken to them , they know your coming through,

 The pair will part, n’ chain them up, n’ stand their cud to chew.

A scoop of corn while milking, then wait till milked the lot,

Loosed off the chains they wander, out to pasture we allot,

Clean the sheds and clean the stalls, till milking comes again,

For to tie them up you always need, good strong shiny chain.

Countryman