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An anaerobic digester was an obvious choice for Lynsey who runs 525 cows near Penrith.
found the planning process for the plant straight forward, however, she does admit it takes a lot of planning to run, requiring a good knowledge of maintenance. Luckily being a family enterprise Lynsey’s brother Francis was able to dedicate some of his time to running the system. But, she believes from an environmental and economical point of view it is definitely worth considering for herds with more than 450 cows.
Initially the AD at
Broadmeadows was run at 90% output, but since the drop in milk price it has been topped up with whey permia to run as close to 100% all the time. The pre-tank is fed automatically by a pump from the underground slurry storage as well as waste silage from the clamp or cow passages being added to it. “We set out with initial predictions that the dairy unit has to be able to pay for the AD plant as a worst case scenario. Including an additional slurry store, the digester and a drier the whole project cost in excess of £750,000. Government incentives are fixed dependant on inflation, but won’t fluctuate providing the AD is run at the official forecasting level. “The AD plant is a great idea, but it does take a lot of planning
and almost has to be treated like a cow to run efficiently. It is worthwhile using as much electricity as possible, our excess electricity is paid at 6.5p/kWH, although the excess does add up to make an extra income over and above the extra savings.”
After losing all stock from what was previously a mixed farm to foot-and-mouth in 2001, the focus was turned to dairy when restocking, partly due to changes in the use of common land. And, having purchased the farm in 2001, after previously renting it, the steading hadn’t been invested in for a number of years and in 2005 planning started for a new dairy unit.
After weaning all calves are fed on TMR.
“Restocking was challenging, we had to be price focussed because we had just purchased the farm. We’d never had to buy in before, it was hard not knowing what problems you were buying in. Trade in the UK was relatively high at the time so we resorted to buying from abroad.”
Aiming to improve the herd
Lynsey signed up with the World Wide Mating Programme with evaluator Rob Braithwaite helping to correctively mate the cows. All heifers are served with sexed semen and the bottom end of the herd is served to British Blue or Aberdeen-Angus semen to try to improve the herd quicker.
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