The challenges of running a dairy herd on an island

Escalating costs are a challenge for any dairy farmer, but to avoid incurring extra expense through inefficiency, milk production on an island has to be organised.

Furthermore, it helps to run a simple system requiring minimal inputs, as this reduces additional haulage charges.

See also: How to create a resilient dairy business

So far, the challenges of dairy farming on an island have been outweighed by enough positives for Chris and Katie Homer.

A low crime rate, a very welcoming and supportive community, plus a good farm have rewarded this couple, who relocated from the family farming partnership in Wiltshire.

Katie and Chris Homer with their daughter Tilly © Katie Homer

For the past four years, they have been establishing a 300-cow herd as tenants of The Mount Stuart Trust’s Kerrytonlia Farm, on the Isle of Bute, just off the west coast of Scotland.

“It’s a fantastic block of land. The ground used to grow some of the earliest potatoes in Scotland, though some of it needs a lot of work. We really liked the farm’s potential,” says Chris.

Grazing infrastructure

Since their arrival on the south-east corner of the island, he and Katie have been busy laying cow tracks, creating a milking platform of 40 paddocks, installing a 24/48 parlour, and applying lime to raise soil pH.

With a focus on grazed grass for their spring block-calving herd – cows are turned out in February and stay out until the end of November – they are feeding just 750kg of concentrates a cow.

The herd was set up using their own stock, locally bought cows, and in-calf heifers from north Wales – all transported via lorry and boat to the farm.

© Katie Homer

Kerrytonlia is now one of nine dairy farms – all selling to First Milk – on the island.

Milk is transported onto the mainland for processing at Girvan, Glasgow or Lockerbie.

Bute is just a 35-minute ferry ride from the mainland, with a regular service running 6am to 8pm, seven days a week.

Milk collection times, however, vary. “It might be twice a day, or every other day – it depends on the farms, tankers and ferries,” says Chris.

Although the ferry service is great for tourists, it restricts residents.

“No boats at night means we can’t go anywhere – and we’ve got to be organised for supplies. We can’t just go to a store, it’s a day out,” he explains.

“There are supply company vans visiting the island, and if we ever get stuck there is help: someone going to market will pick something up for you.

“But it means we carry more stock and have to think one to two weeks ahead for items such as dry cow tubes or mineral boluses. You have to be organised – even if you are not ‘that kind of person’. You can borrow in an emergency, but not as a routine.”

Haulage costs

While there is, fortunately, a vet on the island, Chris says that thinking ahead is not limited to having sufficient supplies.

Trucking any feed, fertiliser or bedding onto an island automatically brings extra expense.

Straw, he reveals, is three times as much as in Wiltshire, at £130 to £150/t, partly because of the distance travelled, but also the ferry cost.

“We try to minimise straw, so we use it for calving yards and the calves; cows are on sawdust in the cubicles. Lime is also expensive because it comes from the border, then has to get on a boat.

“We pay £60/t; in Wiltshire it was £30/t. It is still a good investment, though, just an expensive one, especially with our higher rainfall and light land.

© Katie Homer

“So, we try to run a system where we buy in as little as we can, and we are also members of buying groups, which helps.

“We have bought a Tow and Fert [liquid foliar spray machine] from New Zealand to turn urea nitrogen into a foliar feed. It’s more efficient and we use just 90kg/ha a year.”

Additional nutrients come from farm muck and slurry: a lined lagoon has given Chris and Katie six months’ storage, and they have access to a couple of contractors on the island to spread this on their wholecrop and kale, with slurry going on silage ground.

Weather patterns

After just four years on Bute, Chris says he is still learning to farm the farm, so cannot comment on any changes in climate.

Having just started a liming and reseeding policy, and plate metering for the first time this year, he does not have a full year of grass growth data for comparison.

He has noticed that their light land dries out if it goes without rain for two weeks, though there has yet to be a drought.

Winters are wet and windy without frosts, and any snow flurries do not settle. Surprisingly, for the west coast, there are no plagues of midges.

It seems the island’s closeness to the Scottish mainland has sheltered it from the more extreme weather events and, unlike Orkney and Shetland, it does grow trees (and they stand upright).

Last winter’s storms, however, brought wind speeds in excess of 100mph and Chris was told by locals that they had never before seen anything like the damage this caused. Normally, it is windy “but not that bad”.

“Coming from north Wiltshire, it’s milder here and we can grow more grass over winter,” he says, adding that at peak, he measured grass growing at more than 100kg of dry matter/ha a day, with steady growth overall.

Business development

While the Homers continue to settle in, they are still thinking ahead about future business expansion.

Chris thinks there could be other opportunities on, or off, the island.

“That may be non-farming investment such as property. We still have a lot to do here. We’ve put in a cubicle shed this summer and will convert a shed to increase the feeding area; we have mostly clamp silage.”  

For now, keeping up to date with new technology, ideas and business management will not be curtailed by island life.

Instead, it serves to focus their attention. Milk buyer meetings and taking part in a benchmarking group invariably mean travelling to the mainland.

“You have to make the effort if you want to go, as it’s a whole day – sometimes overnight at certain times of the year,” says Chris.

“We won’t fall behind [in learning], though we pick and choose a bit more and are selective about what we attend – and there is an amazing amount of information online.”