Farmer Focus: Night-time shenanigans to get second cut in

It was great to see Lewis Hamilton recently winning his first race for Ferrari.

Unfortunately, I had to listen to it on the radio as I was cutting our second cut – which is a story in itself.

After 10 days of rain, the grass was starting to go past its best, but then a four-day window appeared.

However, everyone else had the same idea, and our heavier ground was too wet to get on.

See also: Tips on minimising soil compaction on silage ground  

About the author

David Luxton

David Luxton farms with his partner Sarah Haworth on her family’s 101ha all-grass farm on the north Devon/Cornwall border. They run a 200-cow housed Holstein Friesian herd averaging close to 11,000 litres, milking through three robots on a guided system. A further 28ha are rented for growing grass and maize

Read more articles by David Luxton

I’d resigned myself to having to miss the window. I looked again on the Saturday afternoon, and it was just about dry enough to get on the ground.

Trouble was, 6pm wasn’t going to be an easy time to get a forager.

I spoke to several other contractors that would have got to me, but I don’t like to change. In the end, we managed to come up with a plan for Moores to fit me in.

One forager could get to me Monday dinnertime, and the second would come in the evening to help get finished.

However, best laid plans… I did have both foragers on farm but never had both going at the same time.

We stopped for tea at 7pm, but when we set out again, Nigel couldn’t start his forager, so we were back to one.

The decision was made to go through the night to get it done. We finished at 3.30am and beat the rain that never came on Tuesday.

What have I learned from this? Well, Nigel won’t be stopping for tea again.

The cows have been doing very well. We sent the most milk we ever have for April and May, although that was before the heatwave.

Then cows stopped going to the robots and milk dropped by more than 5 litres each. They are slowly coming back up, but will they get back to where they were? I’ll let you know next time.

I had to stop writing this mid-flow, as sat here at 9pm, I looked out of the window to see 30 cows run past the window.

Normal for most of you, considering your cows might be in the fields, but all our stock is fully housed.

Nothing gets you out quicker than hearing the cows are out. Fortunately, within an hour they were all back where they should be after their little excursion.