John Davies
John Davies
John Davies runs an upland
stock farm in mid-Wales.
The main holding at Pentre
comprises 145ha (360
acres) of grass, with some
short-term grass lets being
taken, and hill rights
extending to 97ha (240
acres). The farm carries 101
suckler cows, 975 ewes,
230 Beulah speckled face
ewe lambs and 35 Welsh
Mule ewes.
AFTER a very wet start to March its good that someones on our side. Weve had some problems with the February calves including scours. Some took a lot of TLC and stomach tubing with various rehydration therapies.
I travelled out to Dublin to the Macra headquarters for the Young Farmers International Standing Committee. I met all our counterparts from the UK and Eire Young Farmers Movement. Had some good debate and we all face similar challenges and tackle them in our own way. Macra na Feirme was the host and is a very pro-active, switched-on organisation, with a strong voice for rural young people in Eire.
Kemira Early-bite had been spread on all fields by Mar 11. The daffodils were out earlier than normal which is a good back-up for T-sum. I also spread a little slurry on some of the fields due for later silage.
Like everyone, on the whole weve had an excellent lambing. The weather has been extremely good and the ewes have at last adjusted well to being housed. It has also made quite a difference to our grass situation. We have less than 150 ewes left to lamb so the next job will be marking lambs.
We sold some grazing cows in Builth Wells market. The price was similar to Brecon under the liveweight OTMS scheme, but there is no £8 a head haulage charge after getting them to market.
Havent had too many days off this month for YFC business, although I have attended a couple of useful forums and met with the MOD meat- buying working group. After some clarification of roles and responsibilities with the MLC, things seem to be moving slowly but surely.
I was feeling quite pleased with the way our grass had responded to the fertiliser until I travelled to IGER, Trawsgoed. Proceeding up the drive it was quite evident just what top quality grass and forage managed correctly could do. The new dairy complex looked just the job – if I won the Pools Id have one.
We also had farm tour which included Tygywn organic dairy. Set up after an initial period of "cold turkey" with significant drops in forage production they were back to 95% of pre-organic production, with premium of 8.5p/litre of milk produced. If I was milking Id be very interested.
The next stop was a tour of the grassland trail plots -1400 different plots in one field, some excellent varieties on trial. As I got home I rang Gareth Davies our grassland adviser to arrange a walk of our grassland and assess how to get these excellent varieties into our leys ASAP. They key to survival seems to me to be quality livestock fed on home-grown, high quality forage. *
John Davies visited the new dairy unit at IGER Trawsgoed; hed have one if he won the Pools.