Livestock Farmer Focus: Steve Brown’s cows are rolling in

For those of you tired of my bemoaning my lack of progress with building work and the like, it could be worse; after all Sharon has to put up with it – and indeed, me – on a daily basis.

However, we are now the proud owners of a three-phase electric supply which if nothing else means the house lights do not dim when the bulk tank compressors kick in (every 10 minutes or so with robotic milking). Other than that, all there is to show for a considerable sum is two poles in a field. You could probably get two Poles to milk cows for the same price, but I suppose mine won’t return home after a couple of years.

As for the rest of the expansion plans, foundations have been laid for the shed, and cows are arriving at the rate of four a week from another Mr Brown, the wealthy farmer from Cotesyke Farm, Harrogate. Well, if he’s not wealthy now, he will be by the time he’s finished with me.

It seems he wants to remember the true meaning of Christmas this year, by not having to milk his cows, so I have taken some late lactation cows to begin with, trained them to the robots, and dried them off as the next batch arrived.

This means the current shed and robots don’t get overcrowded for now, but a calculation showing the first four cows produced £65 of milk in total before drying off, a little over 1% return on investment, would hardly inspire a vote of confidence from the Dragons Den. Having said that they probably would say “I’m out” when faced with my more optimistic figures. I’m not sure how that lot made their millions, but I’d bet it wasn’t in dairy farming.