Farmer Focus: Keeping cows out saves 2t of forage a day

I have had a slight change of scenery recently.

With my sister on a hen weekend, it was down to Mother and me to make use of the sunny autumn weekends we have been enjoying and keep the milk machine full and ice cream parlour manned.

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Fridays are usually a bit slow until the after-school rush, so I made full use of the downtime writing my article in between serving customers.

Going into our first winter with the ice cream parlour is slightly daunting so we have been working on winter-proofing the business.

About the author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and family grow grass and maize for the 130-cow herd of genomically tested 11,000-litre Holsteins near York supplying Arla. The Hildreths run a café, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

Read more articles by Tom Hildreth

We have diversified our diversification so to speak, by expanding into hot drinks, cakes, and desserts.

Rufus, the new Salers bull, arrived this week. He is a lot younger, a lot lighter and a lot keener than the last one, which got lazy and heavy.

We only need to save one cow from being flattened and he will have paid for himself.

His first job is to make sure the first group of heifers are in-calf. They have all had at least one straw of sexed semen, so Rufus gets the job of sweeping up.

Maize was chopped on 27 September and yielded around 32.1t/ha, which would have been disappointing in a “normal” year but given the drought it was not too bad.

This year, I am trying to go into the winter with no bare stubble.

Grass was sown in one field and brown mustard in another a couple of days after maize was harvested, and they greened over two weeks later.

I ploughed and drilled wheat in the last field without too much drama, other than the skimmers collecting the maize stalks after our young neighbours flattened the maize crops on those warm summer nights.

I have more chance of milking cows on the moon than getting the council to control the youth of today by means of a security fence.

The cows are still grazing for four to five hours a day and will do so until the ground conditions dictate otherwise.

I would usually have liked them in full time by now, but grazing is saving me 2t of forage a day.

We were buying maize in by the wagon load earlier in the year, so I’m keen to graze while the grass is still growing.