Richard Charmley
Richard Charmley
Richard Charmley is a tenant on a 73ha (180-acre) dairy unit at Ightfield near Whitchurch
in Shropshire which supports 130 Holstein Friesian.
DURING the recent long, dry spell, quite a lot of maintenance around the farm has been done with my trusty tractor-mounted post knocker (which our previous Genus consultant told us to cut in half to reduce the farm repair bills).This is now one piece of machinery less for this years budget which we have just completed and includes a second hand vacci-tanker and a pickup.
This may seem extravagant but we have often scraped through the last 12 months with a bare minimum, borrowing off neighbours, as well as using a contractors Hymac which was parked in the yard all spring. This proved to be a bonus as I used it to load big bag fertiliser, although I nearly took the side of the shed out in the process.
Aug 1 saw the new R registration plates on the road. However, we did not have to join the rush or spend the cash to obtain one as our Land Rover is R registration (1976). They tell me I only have to keep it a few more years and then it becomes exempt from road tax, but I may prefer the budgeted pick up.
After the drop in milk price plus protein capping the annual Bodfari milk producers AGM was well attended. We went to see if we could gain any answers for this, only to discover a speaker had been laid on to take up most of the time and steam out of the situation. This left very little chance for any questions, causing many people to feel they had wasted their time attending.
Throughout July, the cows have milked reasonably well averaging 24 litres a cow with a feed rate of 0.24kg cake/litre. The last week in July we turned cows out into what I remember calling the Ghobi desert which is now a massive crop of stubble turnips. The big problem this time is getting the cows to eat the turnips due to exceptional growing conditions. The only solution was to shut the cows on the turnips in the morning, letting them out at lunchtime. During the first two weeks in August the cows have averaged 26 litres at a lower feed rate of 0.22kg cake/litre.
Rugby training has been underway now for a month on Tuesday and Thursday nights with our new coach Ginger. He is an Army PT instructor, and has told us to refer to the opposition as the enemy. It could be an interesting season. *
The last 12 months have meant scraping by with the bare minimum of machinery and often borrowing from neighbours, says Richard Charmley. But second-hand pick-up and a vacci-tanker are in the budget and on the shopping list for this year.