Winter has definitely announced its arrival to the Great Orme. With the timely delivery of my eBay purchase, an all-weather combating Swanndri coat, the strong winds and horizontal rain have also arrived.
I think 2022 perfectly encapsulates the challenges we now face when planning out our year ahead.
Claire Eastham farms with her husband Martyn in Dorset, where they milk 120-spring calving cows. After gaining knowledge and experience working for other businesses, the couple started their own dairy farming journey in 2015 by taking on a share farming agreement before progressing to their current county council farm.
Fraser Jones milks 1,500 Holstein Friesians across two sites near Welshpool. As a Disease? Not On My Farm! ambassador, he works closely with his vet Oli Hodgkinson, of Trefaldwyn Vets, to prioritise animal health and welfare. Here he provides a farmer’s perspective on the recently launched National Office of Animal Health Livestock Vaccination Guidelines and considers their potential impact on the dairy sector.
This month Roger Evans discusses the current farming situation at home, this year’s grass growth, milk prices and milk quotas.
Mid-October and Cheshire is looking reasonably on top of the job. Maize is all but finished, although some crops have been disappointing in terms of yield.
Well, harvest 2022 is officially over and it was our biggest harvest to date, with 300 hectares (740 acres) of combinables under our belts.
It has been a long, dry summer here in the Scottish Borders and we still have a couple of fields of grass to mow for second cut silage.