Farm Name
Scarah
Bank Farm
Hopefully
getting
better at
Scarah Bank
Chris Berry talks with dairy farmers
Andrew and Alison Walmsley
» » THEY’RE NOT GOING TO
get carried away just yet but
dairy farmers the length and
breadth of the UK are breathing
a fairly huge sigh of relief right
now as the milk price continues
its steady rise since plumbing
the depths last spring. It has
been quite a trial for some and
the next 12 months indeed
probably longer will be needed
to maintain its upward swing
for many to recoup what they
have been losing.
Andrew and Alison Walmsley
of Scarah Bank Farm near
Ripley have never known a
time like it. They had invested
heavily in a complete new
unit including a new dairy
shed with capacity for 200
cows and three Lely Astronaut
robotic milkers just five years
ago when the milk price was
looking a great deal better than
it has looked for the past two
years.
Lely cows manage their own time
‘In all my lifetime of farming
I’ve never known it as hard,’
says Andrew. ‘We’ve had to be
so careful over all our costs and
we’ve attempted to cut corners
where we felt we might be able to
get away with it. We’ve got away
with some things, which proved
to us that we can make savings,
but there are others we tried that
didn’t work. At least we tried.
‘We cut yeast input and that
worked. We’ve never used it
since, so we learned more about
what we could do away with.
We’ve also gone from fortnightly
vet visits to every three weeks.
We just felt that since we had a
good conception rate if we gave
the cows more chance to breed
naturally it might work too and
it has, but not everything we’ve
tried has been successful. We
stopped using a binder we were
putting in for mycotoxins, but cell
counts lifted so we put it back
in.
1930-2017
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they will repay you with higher quality milk.
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W E Jameson's wish continued success to
Scarah Bank Farm and The Walmsley Family
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10-03-17 16:27
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