Dennis Bridgeford
Dennis Bridgeford
Dennis Bridgeford farms 50ha (125 acres) at Petley Farm in Easter Ross, about 40 miles north of Inverness. The farm comprises of a 480-sow indoor unitproducing 95kg pigs for one outlet and 85kg pigs for a more local abattoir. A further 320 sows are run outdoors, with progeny sold at 7kg. The land not used for pigs grows spring barley for use in the farms mill-and-mix plant.
WE have decided to start vaccinating our indoor herd with EP vaccine again.
We tried it once before, but thought the results were not worth the hefty costs. I suspect the truth was we did not give the vaccine a chance to get on top of the problem. This time we will give it at least six months before we complain about the costs involved.
The new service shed is coming on well, and we would hope to have pigs in by the first week of September. In a way I am disappointed to see the end of our existing service area as it has worked really well.
I note that one of the supermarket chains is starting to move the goalposts already regarding sow stalls by saying that the product sold under their own label will be derived from stall-free herds, but the pigmeat they import will not have to meet the same high criteria.
Supermarkets are not top of my Christmas card list at the moment. We have supplied one of the big players in the supermarket game, who felt that freshness was all important, through our local abattoir for years. It has now decided to central buy, so that concludes that piece of business.
The outdoor unit seems to be coming through the summer well, and we have now gone round a full cycle of weaning every second week. It does not appear to have been detrimental to conception, but it is a bit early to compare numbers born. However, there has been a big saving on the cost of transport.
Over the years we have not spent any real money on the crop side of our business, the main reason being that in terms of turnover it is small compared with the pig operation.
The drier is a tray type, handling 25t a batch. On a good day, with little sleep, you could squeeze 100t a day out of it. The thought of barley at £65/t and the chance that the maltsters might be very choosy convinced me that it was time to invest in updating our drying capacity.
We have bought an auger-type system that fits on to the top of the tray, continually turning the grain as it is being blown with hot air. Tray-type driers have always suffered the problem that the bottom is ready before the top, giving an uneven sample.
We decided not to buy any winter barley, as we find that pig performance dips considerably with the variable quality of the crop, so we await the first of the spring batch to try the new equipment out. *
Dennis Bridgeford is to vaccinate his indoor herd against enzootic pneumonia. This has been done once before, but costs were previously thought to be too expensive.