Farmer Focus: Fencing repairs and flat-rate payment fears

We have been busy getting jobs done before the weather breaks.

This has involved catching up with Glastir fencing including replacing some that are only a few years old because the stakes have rotted.

We have replaced them with creosoted stakes at £3.20 each to try to improve longevity.

Will (the student) has been aerating and swardlifting some compacted permanent pasture.

Concrete has been laid for a new feed bin base and some shed floors.

Welsh Black store cattle have been sold direct to a friend who is in a group that finishes them for Waitrose stores in Wales. I think with native breeds it is important to try to capitalise on such schemes.

Hopefully by the time you read this the maize on rented ground will have been clamped.

See also: Read more from our Livestock Farmer Focus writers

We use the six-mile road trip to clean the wheels, as it is critical to avoid soil contamination as goats are prone to listeria.

Maize at home is not quite ready and will be put into an Agbag. This works well for summer feeding with a small face and lowers the risk of soil contamination as trailers tip straight into the hopper on the bagger.

About 200 goats are autumn kidding at the moment.

By using extended lighting in January and February and a Regulin injection to breed them out of season, it helps increase our winter milk. It also spreads the kid rearing workload, at least that is what I tell Jess.

Monmouthshire NFU members are unhappy with the Welsh government’s plan to move to a flat rate payment across all of Wales, with intensive lowland farms losing their historic-based entitlements.

The larger farms have the double whammy of redistribution, effectively capping payments.

The Welsh Assembly government also seems to have difficulty in making the transfer in equal steps over four years until 2019, an equation that is easier than some of my nine-year-old’s maths homework.

I was grateful to get tickets to the Rugby World Cup to see the Fiji v Australia game in Cardiff from my accountant. I will try to avoid gloating over Wales’ win over England. Although I would have liked to see both England and Wales progress from the “group of death”.

Gary and Jess Yeomans run a herd of 700 milking goats across 100ha, which supplies a local cheese factory. They also own a small pedigree Welsh Black suckler herd to graze permanent pasture.