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to serve sooner, with some heifers served for the first time at 13 months,” says Ed. “The machine is getting more volume in to the calves over 24 hour period. After weaning they spend three weeks on a straw yard and are then cubicle trained in the old cow shed. Following straw and concentrates after weaning heifers are moved on to a high fibre silage mix up until calving with additional concentrates being fed up to nine months old.”
The new shed has allowed the use of sexed semen with heifers previously running with an Aberdeen-Angus bull because of limited rearing space. Now instead of using an Angus bull to sweep up, SpermVital Norwegian Red semen from
A slurry separator has saved costs on fertiliser because of the strength of the resulting liquor.
Geno UK is used. SpermVital prolongs sperm life by 24 hours, making it more fertile. The Norwegian Red heifers are calved down and sold. To help keep a lid on costs solar panels were installed two years ago on the silage pit roof, although having no battery home grown electricity only covers electricity use during daylight hours.
Costs have also been reduced on fertiliser through the liquor result of the slurry separator,
Since building a new parlour and milking three times a day production has increased from 8071kg to 10,500kg.
Ed has found that the liquid result is much better at growing grass and now only 30 units of nitrogen sulphur, instead of 100 units, is spread after each cut of silage as well as an application of liquor.
Grass silage is taken from red clover lets around the farm, while haylage for dry cows is made on fields that aren’t spread with slurry. Whole-crop oats are grown on 50 acres at the farm, while whole-crop maize is purchased locally.
Calves are reared on Lely machines which the Flowers believe increases volume intake.
A new cow shed offers better cow comfort for the herd.
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