Mike, Denise, Anna and Tom Stable run the 260-head Boltonmanor herd.
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Creskeld, Blacksnape and Holmland herds Cows are fed a TMR of grass silage, whole-crop, blend, home grown cereals including alka wheat and rolled oats as well as fats. For the past 10 years Judith Galbraith from Westmorland Vets has been the herd vet and carried out fortnightly visits which both Mike and Tom acknowledge have made a difference to the herd’s performance.
“Judith is from a dairy farm, so she is realistic and practical – she has also got to know our problems and capabilities over the past 10 years.”
All of the milking herd are AI’d with the bottom 25% served to British Blue semen and 50% of heifers are AI’d with the rest running with an Aberdeen- Angus bull. All beef calves are sold between eight and 10 weeks old at Bentham. Since numbers have increased so have staff with two full time, James and Ian, as well as a few self employed workers helping out during busier spells. Tom’s sisters, Heather who is a children‘s home furnishings designer, and Jennifer who is a police officer also enjoy helping at home and shows when they are around.
Lisa is in charge of feeding calves, Tom admits she is insistent they get the very best and the results show. “It is almost like having a contract calf rearer and she takes complete responsibility for them.” “We try to calve heifers as young as possible and generally serve on size, but keep an eye on age too. I’m happy to keep the younger heifers and sell the older ones at Bentham. We’ve built up a strong following there having sold between 20 and 30 heifers each year for the past three years and in the past 12 months have averaged more than £1900. It suits me to travel to Bentham, although not our nearest market, I can take two fresh heifers and fill the trailer with calves which are all sold on the same day.”
Since the milk price has been dropping regularly the focus at Bolton Manor has turned more to grazing and Mike acknowledges that there is just as much milk being sent away with less feed costs. Tom has realised and
appreciated the current financial climate means that he can’t chase litres if it doesn’t pay. “In 2015 we have grazed 145 and kept 85 cows in, for the
previous five years it has been the other way round. The lows are grazed day and night with no buffer feeding, only cake in the parlour. It has meant our cost of production is far less, it is one way of trying to cope with the current crisis.”
Purchasing large numbers of cattle over the years to drive expansion has resulted in a tremendous number of cow families, these families have been narrowed down by breeding the better cows pure and the others to beef bulls. Key families which are doing well in the herd now include Roxy, Sunbeams and Periwinkle from Grinkle, Kimo from Smiddiehill, Oralie from Holmland and Ruth and Sweets from Thurlstone. However, there are two families that are really coming to the fore, they are Sadie and Ann.
The Sadie’s descend from Lickber Sinatra Sadie VG86, a cow bred by Isaac Lancaster and purchased from Ribblepark. She only bred one daughter by Shottle which classified EX94 with an EX96 udder, her daughter is Boltonmanor Damion Sadie VG87 who was first at Great Yorkshire Show, Lancashire Calf Show and
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