John Davies
John Davies
John Davies runs an upland
stock farm in mid-Wales.
The main holding at Pentre
comprises 145ha (360
acres) of grass, with some
short-term grass lets being
taken, and hill rights
extending to 97ha (240
acres). The farm carries 101
suckler cows, 975 ewes,
230 Beulah Speckled Face
ewe lambs and 35 Welsh
Mule ewes
ALL attempts at extending the cattle grazing season have been halted with one local rain gauge recording 12.5in of rain during October. Rice growing seems to offer more potential at present.
Cattle were all housed by Oct 22 – it looks like being a long winter – lets hope similarities with 1947 dont continue.
We bought a Charolais bull at Perth and by the time he was shipped home, hell cost just over £2000.
At the third and final Mule sale we sold 44 ewe lambs to average £28.80 to end a thoroughly dismal year of ewe lamb sales.
The sheep have also been extremely unhappy, poaching as much grass as they are eating. Some of the ewes which have been put to the Beulah-Speckled Face tup have gone back to the MOD range and some of the ewes with the Blue-faced tup have gone on tack – which, thankfully, is a little cheaper this year.
Wether lambs are being moved around regularly and given plenty of room – in a kind of holding pattern similar to a jumbo jet circling an airport using fuel before crash landing.
We had to cope with a short notice cattle inspection. The morning was spent checking records, then after dinner we went out to check all cattle born this year. No major problems.
Thanks to the computer, applying for CIDs and passports in the past has been straight forward, so its a real drag to go back to writing each one out, both for me and the operator trying to decipher it at the other end. Surely IT progress and a few £m should take us forward, not backwards.
Taking some time away from the farm, I went on a Future Farmers of Wales farm walk to the chairmans farm. Its always interesting to have a nose around somebody elses place and see what can be learnt for use back at home.
I also attended the Ministry of Defence Meat Working Group in Bath with NFU, FUW and MLC representatives. After a lot of hard work it was good news on the beef front. But it was extremely disappointing that with present market prices for lamb – and with supposed over-capacity in the abattoir sector – no-one on the other side of the farm gate was fired-up to get the annual order, which would require about 90,000 lambs. *