The Farmers Mart Aug/Sep 2015 - Issue 41 | Page 72

Lowfields Farm
Another area that Geoff
makes a point of emphasising
is cow welfare. It’s paramount
to him firstly as a dairyman in
applying the correct livestock
husbandry, but also because
cow welfare relates directly to
the farm’s bottom line.
“In the cow stalls we use a
clay-based soil with three or
four inches of sand on top. It
is a technique that ensures we
get hardly any mastitis. It’s also
a subject that many mums who
visit on Open Farm Sunday
can relate to when you explain
about cracked nipples.”
While Geoff is a forwardthinking dairy farmer, milking
three times a day was not
uppermost in his thoughts until
three years ago.
“Until we started with it I
never wanted to go that way,”
he said. “But we have had an
uplift of between 12-15 per
cent in milk production and
I see no reason why in the

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future - with increased health
and production - we shouldn’t
be averaging 14,000 litres. In
the herd at present we have
a number of cows that are
producing 16-17,000 litres and
we’ve just dried one off that
had produced 18,000.”
The current milk price is
exceptionally worry [