Fresh delivery today of ice cream from @lowermilloftynet I couldn’t have timed it better to coincide with this fantastic weather 😎 Creamy, luxurious and local. If you’ve not tried it yet get on it. Superb. 🍨 😋
Started lambing a few days ago and had the first problem today. A lamb was coming out nose first, normally in this case it's easy enough to intervene and get the front legs up. However, it was a big single and by the time I delivered the lamb it was gone. 😔 Yesterday we had a good set of triplet lambs, 3 lambs are too much for a ewe to rear so I took one away and adopted the lamb onto this ewe to rear.
Sheep know their offspring by smell so to help her bond with the lamb I wanted her to adopt I rubbed it in the afterbirth and so far so good, it seems to have worked. 🥳
It has been a slow spring with grass growth but winter feeding is behind us with cattle all outside now.
This is the first winter using our Keenan mixer wagon so on reflection good or bad move?
On the face of it, were we just going to burn more diesel to ultimately get the same result? With more wear and tare on equipment for a small dairy, was it worth it?
In an ideal world, cows would be out at grass all year round but this is Scotland and although we keep some cattle out wintered they all still rely on silage made from the previous summer’s grass.
The biggest concern using the Keenan was fuel consumption, a valid concern considering what’s happened in recent weeks! The Keenan is a paddle mixer so uses less fuel than most vertical mixers. Interestingly, when we measured how much fuel we used between filling, mixing and transporting the feed, the JCB used more diesel filling the mixer than the tractor burned mixing and transporting it. So all in all fuel consumption isn’t any higher than how we used to feed all the cattle. What we did notice was that there was no wasted feed with the cows cleaning up everything.
The main benefit has been producing a consistent feed. Quality varies between different cuts of silage depending on weather and time of year. Being able to mix these together makes the best use of forage, incorporating our home grown beans and barley to produce a perfect ration. The weigh scales on the wagon makes it’s easier to budget and plan the winter feed.
With a dairy cow you see results instantly, milk yield was up compared to previous winters and the cows are generally in better condition.
So all in all it’s been a good move…
Farmer G
The cows will soon be going into the winter rye for a graze. Rye starts growing at lower soil temperatures so gives us a bite for the cows before the grass gets properly going but it also has some pretty cool properties.
Rye has a allelopathic effect, that is it realises a biochemical from its roots which inhibits the growth of weeds. One of our biggest challenges farming organically is growing crops without herbicide and rye does it all by itself.
The other cool thing about rye is it has a really good mycorrhizal association with the soil. This is a type of fungus which colonises the roots and acts as an extension to the root system where the rye trades carbon (from photosynthesis) for nutrients mainly nitrogen and phosphorus in a symbiotic relationship just as nature intended. Conventional fertilisers and chemicals kill off this mycorrhizal making crops much more dependable on more chemicals.
If the rye was left ungrazed it would grow to 7 feet, grazing acts like a growth regulator and it will probably grow to around 5 foot giving us a crop to harvest. The seed is farm saved to grow next years crop and also some will be used for feeding to the cows whereas the straw used for winter bedding.
Farmer G
Fresh organically reared and fully certified quality assured lamb back in for Easter wkend. This week’s burger is Bengali style passing the QC board at lunchtime yesterday 😋 👌 prepared and packed by the amazing team at @macbethsbutchers
Another fresh batch of our organically reared Scotch Lamb back in stock for Easter weekend. Expertly prepared by @macbethsbutchers with Bengali Style Lamb burgers too 😋
🎙️ Tales of a Nuffield Scholar with Gordon Whiteford @lowermilloftynet
From starting a poultry enterprise from scratch to building a diversified farming business in Moray, Gordon’s journey is one shaped by curiosity and a drive to do things differently.
His Nuffield Scholarship took him across the world, expanding his thinking beyond individual enterprises to a whole-system approach to farming.
And as he reflects, it helped challenge that all-too-familiar mindset of “we’ve tried that before”… opening doors that ultimately shaped where he is today.
Listen to the full episode👇
/episode/3mY0LjMtASWRZwsveJnYNj?si=SgCO1nQQSaqFLqzIuUXIXQ
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