Farmer Focus: Feed barrier adjustment suits our Jerseys

Spring has finally arrived in Ayrshire and I write this while making a start to subsoiling some stubble before ploughing. Thank goodness for autosteer.

I’m not sure what our grandparents would make of all the automation we have now.

The massive drive for efficiency within agriculture has probably been to our detriment – farming was more profitable generations ago, but I certainly don’t fancy going back to ploughing by horse.

See also: Why one dairy farmer has switched from Holsteins to Jerseys

Rory, Jack, “Papa” and I enjoyed a cracking day out at the Ayrshire Ploughing Match recently; the boys were amazed at the vintage tractors.

Recent sunshine

After a wet few weeks, the recent sunshine is most welcome. It’s amazing how quickly the land dries up as the days stretch.

This week will see 3,000gal of slurry/acre spread onto silage ground, as well as the winter barley now we can travel.

I’m intrigued as to how this will go and how much we can trim off the ever-increasing fertiliser cost. 

My contractor has asked to get my drone up to get some photos for his social media pages. I’m still learning how to fly it but it’s another piece of technology that should prove useful, as well as being great fun.

I use the camera on my phone as a diary and it’s great to be able to look back on previous years.

Feed barriers

The quiet spell with field work allowed us to finally get the new feed barriers into the main milking shed. It was really the final piece of the puzzle after changing over to the Jerseys as I thought they were being restricted under their necks.

We’ve taken away diagonal barriers and, with credit to our nearby farming engineering firm, have replaced them with new posts and straight, round bars.

Thankfully we seem to have got the dimensions correct as we’ve had no escapees and they look far comfier while eating.

Zero grazing could start anytime now – the question is, should we?

I’m not sure if it’s better to start cutting and reduce the concentrates in the ration slightly, or leave the tractor parked and just make more silage for first cut to try to ensure pits are full. I still think fresh grass in a ration takes some beating.