Chris Knowles
Chris Knowles
Chris Knowles farms in
partnership with his
parents in the West
Penwith Environmentally
Sensitive Area near St Ives,
Cornwall. The farm consists
of 97ha (240 acres) of
grassland and 45ha
(110 acres) of rough
moor land, stocked with
160 dairy cows, 80
followers and 50 assorted
beef animals
NOT so much flaming June as a flaming horrible June with day after day of cold, wet, miserable weather.
Getting enough grass into cows has been the main challenge, with ground conditions often resembling a nasty day in March or October when cows would be brought back in after 2-3 hours grazing.
I have resorted to mowing grass for cows, which I have found works well, as long as the swath does not get too wet.
We are still feeding a flat rate of 2kg a head a day of citrus pulp after morning milking. This will continue until the end of the service period in mid-July, at which point cows will move on to stubble turnips.
Before bulls went in, we scanned cows that had not returned from the first two weeks of the service period and the conception rate during this period was 57%.
We have hired a 21t swing shovel to finish off the cow track network we started two years ago. I am looking forward to finishing tracks, as during the past couple of months it is typical that we have been trying to graze fields without a track when the weather has been wet.
With all 190 cows now in milk, it is taking about three hours a session to milk, which is too long.
Add half an hour to get cows in and half an hour to wash down and suddenly eight hours out of each day are gone. We have an 11/22 swingover in a traditional Cornish stone barn.
My gut feeling is that we should start again on a new site with at least a 20/40 swingover. But the way the milk price is going, perhaps another five units on the back of the existing parlour is more of a reality. *