Farmer Focus: Herd zero-grazed for 254 days this year
Colin Murdoch © Jeff Holmes They say that well sown is half grown. I’m not sure who “they” are, but I’ll go along with the theory.
We’ve been lucky. We finished drilling winter wheat in mid-October, and didn’t have much rain until the middle of November.
Pre-emergence sprays went on without so much as a mark, and the crop is growing well, other than having to have the bird scarer on to stop the sodding crows.
See also: Zero-grazing switch cuts dairy feed costs by 2p/litre
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To make me feel even more like an actual arable farmer, I managed a day’s shooting, courtesy of a very good friend.
It was nice to return to the Duke of Buccleuch’s Queensberry Estate down in Dumfriesshire, where I worked almost 20 years ago.
We finally finished zero grazing on 7 November, having run out of grass. It was great to get such a good run this year – 254 days from when we started.
We’ve never managed to have the cows out grazing that long on this farm.
I’m not advocating it for everyone, but it’s a cost-effective way of getting milk from grass for us.
Keeping fresh grass in the ration also allows us to consistently maintain milk solids.
Our latest quality result was 6.91% butterfat, which is incredibly important on our contract because it helps to keep the price up.
Mild weather allowed all youngstock to remain outside until 13 November.
We’ve housed them gradually, in batches, to try to stem any pneumonia issues.
We’ll weigh them as we clip them in a fortnight, but they certainly seem to have summered well.
The heifers should hit targets for serving at 14 months.
We’ve recently started supplying a private butcher with fat Jerseys, with the beef destined for fancy restaurants in London.
We’ve kept one for our own freezer, and I can unbiasedly say that I’ve never tasted a better steak.
The fat takes on the same yellow colour as the milk.
Unfortunately, on returning from delivering the last load to the abattoir, a tyre blew out on the motorway, so the profit’s out of the job this time.
A few frantic phone calls later, I was back on the road with two new tyres (yes, the spare was flat too) and home in time to go trick or treating with our oldest son, Jack.
I’m still working my way through the haul of sweets.