Farmer Focus: Best ever silage quality boosts cattle weights
James and Belinda Kimber © Kathy Horniblow Is Donald Trump mad enough to plunge the world into conflict? We are definitely living in a time of change in the world order. Our government is populated with delusional individuals who have their own little ideas of prioritised actions.
Covering land in solar panels will not change global warming if Trump sells all the Venezuelan oil.
See also: How a Sutherland suckler herd achieved a compact calving
About the author
The UK herd figures are out for cows and sheep again, showing significant drops in suckler cows and breeding ewes, and a slight rise in dairy cows.
As a population, we need good food (look at the bankruptcy rate in alternative food companies). As Minette Batters’ report shows, we also need a bit more of the profit pie to continue.
Meanwhile, which lunatic organised lambing in the snow and freezing temperatures? Fortunately, there are only 70 ewes in this group, but it’s almost as much hassle as 200.
The empties went back to the tup for the end of March group, with scanning on 18 January.
We like to have the sheep off all the grass by 1 January, to rest grazing for the main flock turnout in April. All the ewes are on turnips and are looking really good.
I started inseminating the cows on Christmas Eve and, so far, so good. The vet is booked for 19 January for any not served, to get calving as tight as possible.
The standard joke in the pedigree cattle world in November is: “Can I come and see your January calves?”
This year, I think for the first time ever, we had a calf on 1 January. No doubt I am going to get some leg pulling when we show her later in the year.
We have the best silage ever this year, and it is interesting how valuable top silage is. I took the young yearling heifers off coarse mix in November – they were having only 3kg/day, but looked really well.
The young bulls are on 8kg/day, with both groups on maize and grass silage. The December interim weights showed the bulls averaging 2.28kg/day and the heifers 1.76kg/day.
We are trying to generate more organic matter on the new farm. Management is much harder without the ability to buy a bag of fertiliser.
Organic farming really takes a long time to build structure and resilience. Ley composition is so important too, and the nitrogen from clover is effectively free, so we need to address that deficit.