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Chris and Colin took the cow numbers up to 160 cows between 2010-2014 and up to 220 between 2014-2016 . In the process of increasing the herd , all through replacements as they haven ’ t bought an animal since 1980 , they put up new sheds , new cubicles and in 2014 put in a brand new 20 / 40 Pearson swingover parlour from Ireland , which Chris had up and running in just 10 days !
‘ I ’ d seen other dairy farmers take as long as 6 months putting in new parlours and I ’ d attended the Dairy Event to look at different brands . What I really liked about the Pearson was that it was fantastic gear , but also that they had a ‘ fast fit ’ team .
‘ I milk in the parlour nearly every day with one other member of my team of 4 part-time people .’
The next major addition to the family ’ s farming operation came in 2016 when they took on the tenancy of Westonby Farm , which runs to 160 acres . This gave
‘ What I really liked about the Pearson wasthat it was fantastic gear , but also that they had a ‘ fast fit ’ team ’ |
Chris greater flexibility even though quite a bit of the now overall 550 acres is in Less Favoured Area status .
‘ We now have the capacity in the parlour and with the land we have available to get to 300 Holsteins and we currently have a herd average of 11,000 litres with cows giving 5 lactations . We are part of the First Milk group .’
‘ We block calve from 1 September until Christmas and our target is to have 140 Holstein calves born in September of which 70 will be heifer replacements .’
‘ Holstein bull calves are sold at 3 weeks to Russell Toothill near Doncaster who supplies our crimped maize . He fattens for Buitelaar .’
‘ The rest of the cows are AI ’ d to Belgian Blue or British Blue semen with bullocks sold as stores at 12 months . Our heifers have a lot of milk and sell as suckler cow replacements as embryo recipients for Limousin breeders in Carlisle and Holmfirth . This came about through our high health status .’
Chris took the decision to start polling his Holstein herd in 2010 .
‘ Dehorning is an unnecessary and time-consuming task . I could also foresee a time when it would be outlawed . I can see that coming even more today . I thought it would give us a bit of an edge if ours were already polled
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‘ we currentlyhave a herd average of 11,000 litres with cows giving 5 lactations ’ when that time comes . We imported polled semen from Mastergen .’
Winter wheat is grown across 90 acres and Chris is has the milling variety Extase for this year ’ s harvest .
‘ It has high disease resistance and is a hard wheat that can give us up to 4 tonnes per acre . We plough , but use contractors for drilling , spraying and harvesting . I don ’ t have grain storage on-farm so I have to take the price offered at harvest . We use around 50 per cent of the wheat we produce in our feed rations . We also grow Lucerne .’
The latest addition to Chris ’ livestock is a herd of 20 Belted Galloway cattle . Chris said he took them on four years ago to maintain the farm ’ s biosecurity .
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‘ The Mulgrave Estate has 60 acres of moorland adjacent to us that they were looking to turn into conservation grazing through Natural England . I could see that cattle were to be put on to it and because I was concerned about biosecurity , as we have spent so much time making sure our herd maintains its high health status I asked whether I could stock it .’
Chris served around a dozen of his cows with Belted Galloway semen imported from Mastergen and now grazes his young herd of Belties all year round .
‘ We haven ’ t had anything to sell as big stores or as fat cattle just yet and may market them directly as our own beef .’
Colin handles all the AI work on the farm .
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