John Helliar
John Helliar
John Helliar has a 130ha (320-acre) farm on the Longleat
Estate, near Warminster, Wilts. He milks 180 cows, rears
his own replacements and grows 45ha (110 acres) of maize.
1500 store lambs are put out on winter grass keep in October for sale as fat lambs in January/February.
HERE we are the end of September with temperatures by day in the mid 20s and still warm at night and no rain of any consequence since Aug 25. We harvested 30 acres of maize, which is clamped, and the cows are still grazing night and day with a good cover of grass in all fields. What more could one ask for.
Well for a start grazing quality; at best its poor, at worst its b….. awful; due mainly to yellow or brown rust. Add to that the contamination from previous grazings and you have a situation that is not ideal for freshly calved cows. Having calved 150 in the last three months it is difficult to challenge the grass if quality and intakes are poor. So at the moment we are feeding 20kg of last years maize. Unfortunately, the quality of the maize is a bit suspect due mainly to harvesting it a bit late last autumn; 66 D Value, DM 35% and only 10.4 ME which is very low.
However, the crimped wheat which is being tried for the first time looks quite encouraging. The analysis has just come back and is DM 70%, crude protein 14.3 and ME 13.6. This is being fed at 4kg a cow. Hopefully, there will be enough tonnage to last until the ground ear maize comes off in November.
The ryegrass that was drilled into the maize crop in June looks a bit sick. I dont think it is the atrazine because where there is a gap in the maize the grass is very good. It is probably down to the exceptionally high yield of maize, so the grass is paying the penalty – thats the problem when you try to be too greedy. The dilemma now is deciding whether it is dead or now that the maize is off will it come back to life? The trouble is we cant afford to wait and see; if we are hoping to graze in early March the new seed will have to go in now. Im taking a second opinion before deciding what to do.
The first of the sheep arrived in early September and to date we have 1300 lambs put out on three farms. The quality of the lambs is good but I dont like the price. With the £ being so strong the export market is going to suffer, which will mean the end price will be lower than last year. I was hoping to pay £3-4 less for store lambs, but with so much grass about everybody is after extra lamb which has pushed up the price.n
John Helliars freshly calved cows are grazing and being offered 20kg/head/ day of last years maize silage to make up for the shortfall in grass quantity.