Robert Neill is set for new cattle tag trial

We have been busy with arable work at Upper Nisbet during March.


Spring beans were drilled first and then we carried on with sowing the spring barley into near perfect seed-beds this year. All the grazing grass has had a top dressing of 190kg/ha of 27.6.6 fertiliser and is ready to turn cattle out on to. The silage ground has had 370kg/ha of 14.14.21.7. We are usually trying to sow grain while the cows are calving, but this year most of the work has been completed beforehand.


This year instead of vaccinating all the cows at the same time with the scour vaccine, we will draw out cows that are close to calving and vaccinate in batches. Every three weeks we will reassess and vaccinate the next batch due to calve. Hopefully, by doing it this way, the calves will get the full benefit of the vaccine and they will be fully covered when they are born. In previous years, we sometimes had problems when the later cows calved because the vaccine was starting to wear off.


We have recently been approached by a tag company who would like us to trial a new electronic cattle tag they have developed. We have decided to accept their offer and will keep you informed with how we get on with the new tags.


Lambing this year was very straightforward. Our son, Andrew, made an arrangement with his uncle that he would send his five Texel ewes to his farm to be tupped last October. They had all arrived back by the middle of March with their lambs.

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