BUSINESS ON THE FARM


80


ON THE FARM WITH RICH AT RISBURY


Each month Richard Thomas will join us to talk about life on his family farm in North Herefordshire, where they farm beef, sheep, arable and apples. Their ethos is to try to farm in a more regenerative style for the benefit of future generations.


One of the most nervous times of the year is the wait for our six-monthly TB test for the cattle. We test in the spring and in the autumn and it was in mid-March that we gathered all of our cattle, and a vet came and did the test again. We had a nervous few days, but I am glad to be able to tell you that we had a clear test. Stress over for another few months.


We also took some blood samples from the breeding cattle. It is something that we periodically do, in conjunction with our vet and our herd health plan. Although we have an almost closed herd, only occasionally buying in a bull, it is good practice to make sure that we do not have any underlying health issues. We are still awaiting the results, but as we haven’t had any issues for a long time, we are not worried about them.


Elsewhere on the farm it is drying out slowly, although we are still getting some wet and cold weather, so it feels like we are bouncing somewhere between a fool’s spring and second winter. My weather app on my phone tells me that we are due a nicer week and them some showers for the run into April, so perhaps ‘proper’ spring is no far away.


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The ewes are due to lamb on the first of April and the ewe lambs are due three weeks later, so good weather for April would be very handy indeed. The other reason we, and many others are hoping for better weather is that feed stocks are running low. Last summer really did take its toll on grass growth and the prices of bought in hay and straw are pretty high. We have some grass that we have saved to allow for an early turnout for the cows and calves, but it doesn’t go very far when it is wet and, or cold.


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