Andrew Burleigh finishes slurry spreading with hours to spare

On Monday 15 October, with only a few hours to spare before the slurry-spreading closed season came into force, we got all our tanks emptied by a contractor using the pipe system. Thankfully, with no harm done to the ground surface.

My father-in-law judged the Simmentals at Stirling and says he was proud to be the only breeder from Northern Ireland to have judged both Charolais and Simmentals at the Scottish event. His champion Simmental went on to sell for the top price of 20,000gns.

The weather is proving to be more settled at the present, with temperatures dropping to freezing point at night. All cattle are now housed for the winter, on a mixture of silage and straw, with minerals being fed to all cows and youngstock.

With it being such a wet year, we have had to dose all stock twice for fluke and worms. I firmly believe that livestock with fluke and worms in them will not perform well and that purchasing dosing products is money well spent. We bought in a lorry load of round bales of June-made hay. They cost £30 each. All the suckled calf sales are over now for this year. As always, the Charolais cross calves cannot be beaten on price, especially the orange-coloured ones, returning at least £100 more than all other breeds.

I have my first turkey orders for Christmas in the shop. It only feels like a month or two since last Christmas, but I suppose time goes by quicker the older you get. I still hope beyond hope that Santa Claus will come to me, even though I am now 40+.

Andrew Burleigh farms a mixed farm and runs a traditional butchers shop in south-west Fermanagh with his wife, Rosalind, and sons Alan and Lee. The home farm is run by his brother and nephew, and is home to a Beltex pedigree flock along side a commercial flock, suckler cows, stores and beef cattle.

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