Steve Brown suffers with the slurry pit

Last month I suggested the obvious solution to solve the problems associated with winter housing would be to turn the cows out.

At this point the rain we missed out on last winter appeared and fields are waterlogged. With cows milking well (averaging more than 34 litres a day – albeit after a 10-cow culling session that was 60% planned) and plenty of silage left, what could be the problem? Slurry storage, that’s what.

The main pit is full, and the reception pit under the cubicle shed is filling rapidly. It’s at times like these that you could do with a little Dutch boy to stick his finger in the dike. However, even metaphorically speaking, such a suggestion is probably politically incorrect these days on a number of grounds.

After the closed NVZ spreading period which we coped with by diverting wash water, the resulting slurry was too thick for the umbilical man to spread. The pits were not fully emptied in January and hence we are full up, with nowhere to spread in the last week of April.

The fact our old mixer/pump did not reach the bottom of the new pit didn’t help matters, and when I made a throwaway remark that a slurry separator might be the answer, he probably decided he would come back when faced with a more liquid medium to pump. At that point I hadn’t priced such a project, and it seems that the welfare grants available at present would apply to the shed and cubicles (which I invested in last year), but not to slurry scrapers and storage, which is what I need to invest in this year. I think they are equally applicable to welfare. After all, what’s the use of the finest hotel, with a luxurious bed, if there’s no en-suite bathroom, and you have to share the toilets with the rest of the guests down the corridor?

Steve Brown farms 200ha (500 acres) in County Durham, in partnership with his parents. The family’s 125-cow herd is run at Hopper House, with a 200-ewe flock and replacements on grass at a separate unit.

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