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USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE AT BOLTONMANOR
Sharing knowledge can happen subconsciously in day-to-day life, but the next generation are taking a different approach at Boltonmanor
The Boltonmanor herd is run
by Tom Stable and his father Mike with Tom’s wife Anna and Mum Denise also helping in the day to day running of the farm. Since Tom returned from university five years ago he has taken an active role in making decisions and changes alongside Mike. Both prefer to see and hear other people’s experiences and recommendations before making any decisions or purchases. “Dad has instilled in me to take independent advice as opposed to sales pitches, so we prefer to go and find examples and see how it works before making any decisions. One example of this was back in 2007 when we were looking to invest in a new parlour. Dad and I spent our weekends travelling the country visiting farms and discussing parlours with farmers,” explains Tom.
The existing 16:16 Miele low jar parlour was replaced with an 18:36 Dairy Master with sequential baling, auto ID and feeders. “We noticed a massive
difference when we upgraded the parlour. And as a result of our research there isn’t much we spent money on that we aren’t happy with. But, there is no other industry that competitors happily show you around their business, factory or
Tom and Anna Stable used social media to plan their own herd tour in America.
facilities.” Tom admits that they are open minded to try most things and monitor the results. In the past 12 months Tom has taken to social media as a platform to share what he is doing on the farm, but also receive advice and suggestions from others. Following success at the All Breeds All Britain Calf Show last year Tom decided it was a good time to share his pictures. “I was a little nervous about putting the farm on Facebook because it does open the business up to comments and potentially criticism. However, it has been amazing the people who have liked our Facebook page are from all over the world – more countries than I could ever name, we now have more than 5000 likes, I try to target likes from the UK and Ireland. Facebook also gives me the opportunity to share pictures.” According to Mike showing at Boltonmanor is a great example of sharing knowledge,
“Anna had the knowledge and we didn’t, with her help we’ve all had a lot of enjoyment out of seeing Boltonmanor cattle achieving success in the show ring”
One of Tom’s highlights on social media was the start of #ratemytrim, a thread that ran on Twitter discussing foot trimming and feet problems. This resulted in American consultant Karl Burgi travelling to the UK and providing a foot trimming courses at the farm, organised with Sara Pedersen entirely through twitter. “I was aware we had feet problems in the herd, I had been on an average foot trimming course a long time ago, so I started asking questions on Twitter. This developed in to loading pictures onto twitter with various people colouring in where they thought should be trimmed. The advice was very helpful and using the hash tag other people started doing the same. Karl started
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