WHEN Joe Swainson ’ s grandfather was dairy farming he was bottling 700 litres a day that was all largely being delivered on the doorstep in and around the farm at Kirkhamgate and the surrounding villages and towns such as Wakefield .

Doorstep delivery died in the UK and the Swainson family came out of being producer-processors , upped their cow numbers and concentrated their efforts on supplying milk to dairies .

Two years ago Joe , now a fifth generation dairy farmer at Red Lodge Farm , and his wife Kate began retailing milk from the farm once again , selling raw milk . It only makes up a small percentage of the milk produced by their cows , but it is significant because it is serving a clear market need and also allows them to be price makers rather than price takers .

‘ We ’ d been asked about raw milk by quite a few local people , whether we could supply it and thought we ’ d have a go ,’ says Joe . ‘ We also looked at pasteurising but found there wasn ’ t much of a selling point above anyone else ’ s milk , but there was a market for raw milk .’

Such has been their success that they are now selling 2500 litres a week with the lion ’ s share of the milk being collected by customers at their timber lodge near to the farm gate and the rest delivered .

It ’ s almost a case of going back in time , but this is a dairy farm that is embracing current technology as well as harking back to its past .

‘ We put up two new cubicle sheds seven years ago and two years after that we put in Magic Merlin Fullwood robotic

milking machines . We are now all year round calving because that works better with the robots and we are just about to switch the herd over to Fleckvieh cows for the better fat and protein that the dairy we supply is looking for , for its products .’

Joe ’ s herd currently runs to 120 Holstein cows and Red Lodge runs to 140 acres . He says that getting used to the robots took him a while and that he really went for the increased yield his cows were giving initially , but that it came at a price .

‘ They were doing the equivalent of 12,000 litres each . You ’ ve never seen cows fall to bits as fast . We brought them back a bit and kept doing it until we found a sustainable level of averaging 8,000 litres .’

‘ The cows love the robots . They average going to them

2.8 times a day , they used to average 3.4 times a day and have had them going 6-7 times . New calvers producing more milk will go more often than the current average and might get to 4.5 times a day . It ’ s all down to how many litres they are producing . I have a love / hate relationship with them . I can control how many times each cow goes by altering the settings .’

‘ I ’ d say it has made my dairy farming different rather than necessarily easier . My contact with the cows always used to be from the back , the shape of their bags . That was the way I knew them . Now I see the whole cow . It is noticeable how much more calm they are now and how they will all stay laid down . It ’ s not ‘ that time of day ’ again when they all have to get up together to be milked . It is knocking out

some of that herd instinct . The all year round calving helps because it means we haven ’ t as many newly calved cows that we are trying to cram into one time frame .’

‘ The robots also feed the cows so much per litre . In the summer the cows go out into the paddock where they graze , munching grass . We feed big bale silage in the trough .’

The move to Fleckvieh , which will see the first Fleckvieh calves born at the end of July has been brought about by Joe wanting to provide milk with a higher butterfat and protein content and a dual-purpose breed that can throw even better beef calves .

‘ The Holsteins have just got to the stage where I can ’ t get that weight to them and I thought a dual-purpose animal might open up more avenues from the meat side .’

‘ We looked at purebred Fleckvieh cows imported from Germany and they are brilliant . They won ’ t give quite the amount of milk the Holsteins can give although they might get near , but what they give is fat and protein and that ’ s what the dairy we supply – Yew Tree Dairy – in Skelmersdale wants , to dry the milk for powder and sell abroad .’

‘ Calving our first Fleckviehs in July means we won ’ t be milking any for two years and those first ones will be Holstein X Fleckvieh . They ’ ll still have a lot of Holstein in them . It will be in around five years ’ time when there might be two generations of Fleckvieh that we will properly start to see the difference .’

Joe has been using sexed semen with the Holsteins but

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