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The aim is to utilise what we grow as much as possible, so cows are fed one TMR ration with no selective feeding or top up in the parlour
during the day from April to September. Len aims to produce as much off the farm as possible and as well as 640 acres of silage taken over three cuts. He also grows winter and spring barley, winter wheat, spring wheat under sown with grass for whole-crop, fodder beet and spring beans. “The aim is to use what we are able to grow as much as possible, so cows are fed one TMR ration with no selective feeding or top up in the parlour. Cows are grazed during the day for as long as possible and I have found housing them at nights allows some consistency in the diet and helps main- tain body condition. The TMR is made up of grass silage, whole-crop wheat, straw, soda wheat, blend straights, molasses, rape, soya and sugar beet. “Winter and spring barley is mostly consumed by young stock and bull beef. Beef sires are used on the bottom end type or problem cows and all beef and bull calves are finished. Some are finished at 12 months as Rose Veal and some on the more traditional 14 to 15 month bull beef. Continuing to use home grown crops, these calves are reared at Powley Farm which works well with little additional labour.”
Calf rearing starts with between three and four litres of colostrum as soon as possible after birth and they continue to be fed colostrum for five days. They are reared on buckets for up to four weeks before being batched up. Heifers are fed on powder milk, while bulls are fed on waste milk from the parlour and ‘B’ litres out of the tank. “We have moved weaning age from eight to 10 weeks to make calves stronger before they take a check at weaning. From four months old they go on to a forage based TMR in cubicle housing or are turned out to grass during the summer.
ABOVE LEFT The original 12:12 parlour was upgraded to a 18:36 swing over in 1998.
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ABOVE RIGHT The 350-head Stowbeck herd is run by the Wilson family at Skirwith Hall near Penrith.
BELOW Cows are grazed during the day with restricted grazing from April to September.
“For the first time during autumn 2014 we tried calf jackets and noticed a difference in calf health. We are also in the early days of using temperature tags whereby the tag alerts you when the temperature starts to rise and hopefully we will help catch problems quicker,” says Len. Since foot-and-mouth in 2001 cattle have been sold regularly
50 THE JOURNAL AUGUST 2015
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