Large Herd Fact FileQ A&
Katie Davidson quizzes a number of large herd owners on the challenges facing large herds in the UK today
Fergus McDowall Prefix: Rerrickpark. Cow Numbers: 875. Herd Average: 10,300kg 3.78%bf and 3.45%p. Ration: Grass silage, wheat whole-crop, maize meal, soya hulls, soya rape, Vitagold, caustic wheat, megalac and minerals. Calving age of heifers: 24 months average, calving from 21 months onwards but the aim is 22 months. Culling rate: 25% for involuntary, voluntary and death. Number of staff: 13. Milk buyer: Wiseman. Industry services used: Alta Mate, Alta Advantage, vet once a week to PD and foot trimmer once a month.
As a large herd can you face milk market volatility more sure footed than smaller herds? Fundamentally, I think we can deal with it better, as the cost per litre is diluted in large herds. What drove you to expand? Numbers increased to 400, with a low calving interval, low cell count, sand system then cows were lasting well. With numbers increasing naturally and the system was working well so we kept expanding, occasionally heifers are purchased from Denmark - they milk well with good components. We will stop at 1000 cows.
What is the biggest challenge for a large herd? I think across the board in large dairy herds is staffing and people management. We have been lucky with the most of our Romanian staff that we have taught from scratch and they have been very good.
Neil Baker Prefix: Kingruss. Cow Numbers: 1300. Herd Average: 11,292kg at 3.74% bf and 3.30%p. Ration: 8kg grass silage, 22kg maize silage, 4kg whole crop, 4.5kg rape, 4kg maize meal, 2kg distillers maize, 2kg sugar beat. Calving age of heifers: 23 months. Replacement rate: 30.5%. Number of staff: 21. Milk buyer: Arla. What do you focus your breeding decisions on? Until two years ago we were cheese makers and still we have components as our first focus - we’ve never bred for milk. Now, we’re looking at total component yield and choosing higher milk bulls than we have historically. I want bulls to have excellent mammary scores, but rely on GMS for correctively mating for chest and legs, we run around 15 bulls through the programme. What drove you to expand? The driving force for us was economy to scale – we put in a fairly big infrastructure having previously invested in to the cheese processing plant. How did you expand? We’ve imported cattle from Germany due to TB and BVD reasons. UK farms with 100 fresh heifers that are BVD free and have a good TB history are very limited.
What’s the biggest challenge for a large herd? Access to land is an increasing issue. Every cow needs one acre and I’m always looking to purchase land, but have competition from businesses with solar panels and anaerobic digesters.
Charlie Weir Prefix: Burnhill. Cow Numbers: 600. Herd Average: 10,500kg. Ration: Grass silage and meal, topped up to yield in the parlour. Calving age of heifers: 25 months with an aim of 24 months. Culling rate: 27% average the past two years.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132