John Glover
John Glover
John Glover currently milks
65 cows plus followers on a
20ha (51-acre) county council
holding near Lutterworth,
Leicestershire. He is moving
farms, having recently gained
tenancy of another 40ha (100-
acre) county council farm.
WHO would be a commuter? We are currently living at one farm and milking at the other. Me, my 24-year-old Land Rover and the dog set off to milk at the old farm about 5.30am, leaving the rest of the family asleep.
With the children at school, the next time I see them is when they are in bed at night. At five and three-years-old, they find it difficult to understand why this is so, as I am usually about at meal times and when they come home from school.
Building work has been going well. We now have the blockwork and concrete floor in the parlour and dairy, which now needs plastic cladding before fitting the parlour. Outside, the dirty water tanks are installed but not connected, and will be emptied by a vacuum tanker initially. The ground has been cleared and topsoil removed ready for stoning and concreting the feeding area and maize clamp.
Unfortunately we will not be able to move on Sept 29. It will be a further two weeks before we are ready to move the milking herd, which is at the old farm, so feeding them is being kept simple with straights being bought in small amounts, usually collected with our own tractor and trailer.
We were feeding potatoes, but decided not to order any before moving, replacing them with extra bread in the diet. This had a marked effect on quality, lowering the already low butterfat (3.6%) even lower to 3.0% for the past two weeks so we will open the grass silage clamp to increase the fibre in the diet.
The recent wet weather allowed us to spring clean and paint at the old farm ready for an outgoing valuation, but when the rain stopped it was back to straw carting.
Our own field of wheat was cut on Sept 4 and had suffered with the weather. It was harvested at 20% moisture, giving a yield of 2.5t/acre when dried and a bushel weight of 64.6kg. As there is no IACS payment on this field there is little profit in the crop.
It looks as though I will be commuting for a short time yet having to contend with the traffic – three cars and a moped – and the weather; fog this morning. *
While John Glover and family have moved to the new farm, the cows
are at their old farm for a couple of weeks yet – that means commuting between the two units for milking.