Farmer Focus: Maize crop only positive in challenging season
James and Belinda Kimber © Kathy Horniblow Although Delilah, Tom Jones’s song about domestic abuse, has been widely banned, perhaps we should adopt the verse with a little change: “Why, why, why do we do it?”
We have missed any good rain, merely a few drops momentarily joined together.
With no cover on the fields, any moisture has simply blown off in hot winds the next day.
We have moved sheep regularly from bare field to bare field, and even their enthusiasm has waned, realising there is no nirvana round the corner.
See also: Advice on lifting lamb weaning percentage
About the author
The commercial ewes are split into four groups: fit, OK, need improvement, plus the gimmers. The “need improvement” group really do need some food soon.
The tiny bit of moisture was, however, enough to hatch haemonchus larvae. Coupled with tiny shoots of grass, the result was that one group of lambs got hit hard.
From OK to dead in 24 hours was a bit of a shock. Fortunately, I had some wormer in stock, and quick action stopped any more losses, but a few of the surviving lambs will take a long time to recover.
The dry cows finished all the hay, so are now on clamp silage left from last year.
This will be covered up with the maize harvest next week. It will be very interesting to see the final yield and quality as the crop has looked incredible right through the season.
The poor mental health situation in agriculture is well documented now, so you would think that a laboratory vet giving bad news would be a bit more gentle than telling me I’m a dirty, horrible farmer with no biosecurity.
I paraphase, but that was the message delivered with some unwelcome test results: namely, that we have had a maedi visna reactor in purchased stock from last year and are awaiting further tests.
The animal in question was an embryo-born lamb, which has to bring into question the recipient dam, as the disease is highly transmittable through colostrum.
Nose-to-nose transmission seems less certain if you look at the scientific papers I read at 3am when I couldn’t sleep.
So, do we do it all over again or move to that desert island?