Farmer Focus: Goats get more feed space than cows
Gary Yeomans © Richard Stanton I attended a dairy sheep and goat conference a few weeks ago that covered a variety of topics from international speakers.
Increasing feed space up to 45cm a goat had been shown to increase dry matter intakes in the US.
One leading UK goat milking unit has increased space a goat to 2sq m. My vet said that some of his cow clients do not have 45cm a cow feed trough space – let alone goats.
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Disease control
Johne’s disease control and eradication was also discussed and we will continue our current policy of vaccinating kids at disbudding.
After hearing from a Dutch expert, we will also blood test older goats prior to kidding to remove any Johne’s-positive nannies from the kidding area.
We have been busy kidding goats and calving cows at home with no major problems.
Activity monitor
We have had mixed results with the tail head activity monitor. The cow often sets the monitor off soon after application when it tries to swish it off and we have spent time looking for it as it has come off several times. It does work when attached to the correct cow though.
A particularly aggressive cow had twins and it was quite tricky to get her in the crush to get them both to suck and we unfortunately lost the smaller calf. We have turned the cattle out now following a clear annual TB test.
Fertiliser has been delivered and the spreader has been tested. We have ordered maize and grass seeds – we just need a dry week to get some muck out.
We are contemplating buying some entitlements for the extra land we are renting and need to work out whether to buy high-value ones that are declining in value, or lower-value ones that are rising in value.
The new JCB skid steer has arrived and is positively luxurious compared with the original bobcat we started with. It features a radio, cab, heater and aircon. Loading the Keenan on a wet morning is now much nicer.
Tommy and I were fortunate to get tickets to the Six Nations Wales v Ireland game, which was a brilliant Friday night out.
Gary and Jess Yeomans run a herd of 700 milking goats across 100ha, which supplies a local cheese factory. They also own a small pedigree Welsh Black suckler herd to graze permanent pasture.