The Farmers Mart Jun-Jul 2019 - Issue 63 | Page 56

56 CASTILES FARM
JUN/JUL 2019 • farmers-mart.co.uk
THE AREAS
PREMIER
FARM
STORE
COARS ARE PLEASED TO SUPPLY COLIN AND
JOANNE NICHOLSON OF CASTILES FARM AND WISH
THEM CONTINUED SUCCESS FOR THE FUTURE!
Leeming Bar Ind. Estate, Leeming Bar, Northallerton, DL7 9UL
www.coars.co.uk | Tel [phone]
RUSSELL GROUP
www.russells.uk.com
LEADERS IN AGRICULTURE, CONSTRUCTION AND
GROUNDCARE EQUIPMENT
GRAZING AND
GLAMPING IN
GRANTLEY
Chris Berry talks with Sean & Joanne
Nicholson at Castiles Farm.
ROBOTS have come and gone. Herd average
WISHING THE NICHOLSON FAMILY
AT CASTILES FARM EVERY SUCCESS
IN THE FUTURE
BRANCHES THROUGHOUT YORKSHIRE
Please contact our Head Office on:
01653 698000
RUSSELL GROUP
is down. Glamping is the new enterprise. The
first two of that trio might give the impression
that all is not well at Castiles Farm in Grantley
near Ripon but nothing could be further from
the truth as Sean and his wife Joanne grow the
new farming generation that first came here
in 1938 with Sean’s great grandparents George
and Mary, and was taken on subsequently by
grandparents Harry and Dorothy in 1961 and
parents Colin and Sharon in 1991.
When Colin was thinking of packing up
dairying and moving on to heifer rearing
after the milk price had slumped to 17ppl.
That’s when Sean, his eldest son came
back to the farm in 2006.
‘I wanted to milk cows but had never
really thought about when I was coming
back. I’d studied at Harper Adams, had
spent a year in Australia and had come
back for a wedding. It’s then I realised
there might not be the opportunity if I left
my decision much longer. We all sat down
together, myself, mum, dad, Jo and my
three brothers and talked it through.’
‘As the milk price improved, we changed
to robot milking with two Lely Astronauts,
but it didn’t work for us because although
it was meant to make our lives easier it
didn’t as our land is mostly on the oth-
er side of the road to where the robots
were in the farm building. That meant
we had 250 acres of our 300 that were
never grazed and we had to keep them
inside, which is not our style and we had
problems with mastitis, plus our cows
were giving too much milk for our robot
capacity.’
‘We wanted to expand the herd and
bought extra land, but we would have had
to also buy more robots that wasn’t going
to work out financially so we cut our loss-
es, sold the robots seven years ago and
reinstated the old parlour, with the plan to
build the new parlour which we did and is
now a De Laval 24/48.’
‘While we had robots we were averag-
ing 11,000 litres which sounds great but we
were struggling to get cows into calf, had
mastitis problems and were pushing the
cows to the robots. It was a nightmare.’
W. E. JAMESON & SON LTD
MASHAM HG4 4EL
Dedicated team of farm animal vets
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Proac�ve approach to ca�le & sheep health,
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Consultancy services available
www.bishoptonvets.co.uk
Proud to support Sean & Joanne Nicholson at Cas�les Farm
Committed to long term partnerships supporting British livestock farming.
We are proud to supply
COLIN & JOANNE NICHOLSON at Castiles Farm
• Compound Feeds
• Specialist Blends
• Minerals, Blocks & Buckets
• Milk Powders
• Animal Health
• Hardware
• Grass seed
• Forage seed
• Environmental seed
• Grassland herbicides
• Fertilisers
• Silage Additive
Call us on 01765 689666
ANIMAL FEEDS • ANIMAL HEALTH • SEEDS • FERTILISERS