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DAIRYING has always been the way for Tom and his father Howard Pattison at Willow Tree Farm in Thrintoft that presently has the status of being an AHDB Strategic Dairy Farm hosting meetings with other dairy farmers and with experienced professionals from all aspects of the dairy world and Tom says being involved has been a positive step .
“ We ’ ve hosted a handful of on-farm meetings and having them has opened up areas where we could improve and has brought up new ideas . I wouldn ’ t say it ’ s answered all the goals we set out , but it has been a step forward and we ’ ve had knowledgeable people here offering their advice based on their own experience in different areas .
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Howard is the fourth generation to farm at Willow Tree and he had his head firmly fixed on where the farm was heading on his watch .
“ We ’ d have 120 cows at one time and now we have 260-280 cows , all pedigree Holsteins . It ’ s the way I wanted to go . I remember saying to my wife that I just wanted to get to 200 cows , and then you get there and just keep going . Then Tom and his sister Emma came along . Tom was very keen with the cows and the farm . All he wanted was to leave school , come home and farm .
“ I never had any other ideas except dairy farming either . We had a mixed farm when I was younger . I remember lambing sheep here and we had poultry . I did have a bit of interest in sheep when I left school , but into my late
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teens and early 20s everything was cows from then on . I ’ ve never liked hens , I had very little to do with them . They ’ ve gone completely and my brother took the sheep , and all beef animals went up there initially . Since I got married it has all been about more cows , more cows , more cows .
Howard says they have constantly made improvements to the dairy operation and continue to do so .
“ All my life and all Tom ’ s life we ’ ve invested . We ’ ve now got some really good cow sheds , silage pits , slurry lagoons , and our infrastructure building-wise is as good as any dairy farmers around I would say .
“ We haven ’ t got robots , but you can ’ t rule them out . Everything is progressing and robots are coming more and more , but I think our cows benefit from
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being seen regularly and we do very well with production at somewhere in the region of 13,000 litres per cow on twice a day milking . They would maybe benefit from being milked three times a day , but even then robots are not necessarily the answer and the feeding regime for a robot is totally different from a TMR herd like ours .
Howard says that he used to farm with his brother Ian for about 24 years .
“ We farmed in partnership across two farms and when we split , quite amicably , he took one farm and I took the other . Ian still farms down the road , we ’ re still good friends , see each other quite a bit and socialise together , we get on really well . Our dad Michael passed away
Continues on page 64 ...
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