How a pig producer and arable farm made a switch to dairy

Norfolk farmers Rebecca and Stuart Mayhew have ditched intensive pig production and arable cropping in favour of Jersey cows.

In a dry county – annual rainfall at Old Hall Farm in a “normal” year is just 620mm – where dairy herds number barely 25, this is arguably a bold move.

However, the couple say a milk contract with a processor was never on the cards. Instead, they have set up a wholly pasture-fed cow-with-calf dairy, with all milk sold direct.

See also: Getting into dairy farming: Options for new entrants

Previously, the farm had 400 breeding sows and finished 10,000-12,000 pigs a year.

Straw from the arable land was used to bed the pigs in a partly slatted system, and rations were mixed on-farm.

When an outbreak of actinobacillus pleuropneumonia forced a complete cull of the herd, the Mayhews decided they could not justify the investment needed to restock.

Instead, they switched to a bed-and-breakfast contract-finishing setup.

But, with variable quality of stock arriving on-farm, and no way to control it, the experience “cured any hankering to keep pigs at that sort of scale”.

Rebecca and Stuart Mayhew © MAG/Judith Tooth

Their journey into dairying was not planned. It began when they returned from a holiday in Scotland with a Jersey cow. They started milking her and set up an honesty box for raw milk sales.

Demand was strong, so they bought a couple more cows, and then a few more… and by Christmas they will be milking 45 cows.

“We learned to milk from YouTube,” says Mrs Mayhew, who only replaced a portable milker with a four-abreast parlour when cow numbers reached 25.

The plan is to upgrade this with a six-abreast model when they get to 50 cows.

Cow-with-calf setup

Cows are milked once a day, in the morning. The couple opted for a cow-with-calf setup to avoid the work involved in a conventional “snatch-calving” system.

“We’ve found the calf makes no difference to yield for the first six-to-eight weeks,” she says.

“We don’t have a hard and fast system, but, as a guide, we start overnight weaning from about three months of age, and the calves go back with their mums after morning milking.

“They are [fully] weaned at seven to nine months, in groups.”

After weaning, youngstock are mob-grazed and those destined for slaughter finish at about 30 months, depending on the breed of bull used.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Calving interval

The farm’s cow-with-calf system extends the calving interval – something most would consider a significant disadvantage – and which the Mayhews, too, struggled to accept at first.

But, since attending a holistic management course in regenerative farming, they say they have become much better at accepting when changes need to be made to keep on track with their business objectives.

“The idea is to be very clear about what you are trying to achieve – which, for us, is to have healthy milk, calves, cows and customers – and viewing everything in that context,” says Mr Mayhew.

Calving interval is a case in point, he says. They had assumed they had to get the cows back in-calf as soon as possible, but when they questioned this assumption, they started to develop fresh answers.

“While the cows are still suckling, fewer of them get back in-calf, and once they are back in-calf, yield starts to tail off. Understanding that takes the pressure off everyone,” he says.

“I felt terribly under pressure at the start to get the cows back in-calf at 56 days, but we’ve found that the longer the cows and calves stay together before weaning, the more milk they produce,” adds Mrs Mayhew.

The key, they say, is to acknowledge that decisions made might not be right, to look for signs of them not working, and to be adaptable. They try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

© MAG/Judith Tooth

Growing demand

As well as the dairy, there is now a farm shop, café and food-processing facility at Old Hall. Retail price for raw milk from the farm is £2/ litre, and there is a waiting list for online delivery.

“The nutrient density of milk increases five-fold when cows are 100% pasture-fed,” says Mrs Mayhew. “Our customers prioritise their income on healthy food.”

Daily production peaks at 400 litres/day in late spring and tails off to 225 litres/day by the end of the summer.

Of the 1,400-1,500 litres currently produced a week, 300 litres go for deliveries and farmers’ markets, 100 litres or more are sold through the café and farm shop, and the rest is used to produce cream, butter, yoghurt, ice cream, ghee, cream cheese and crème fraîche.

“In a conventional system, with snatch-calving and concentrates fed, daily yield is, say, 25 litres a day,” says Mr Mayhew.

“You can take one- third off for a pasture-fed system – we only feed grass nuts in the parlour – and then some more from keeping the cows and calves together, so we usually budget for 10 litres a cow a day over the lactation.

“But this year, because of the heat, it’s more like 8-9 litres a day.”

Herbal leys

The area of arable land on the farm has diminished as the size of the herd has grown. Initially, fields were sown to perennial ryegrass and clover mixes.

Then, in 2019, the whole farm went into Countryside Stewardship (CS) and GS4 herbal ley mixes were scratched into the existing swards.

“A cold, wet winter and a hot, dry summer made establishment of the herbal leys very difficult, and we had to resow most of them in 2020,” says Mr Mayhew.

“And although they haven’t been so good in terms of volume this year, there has still been fresh, green food every day.”

Payments under CS have provided a valuable buffer and bought the Mayhews time to work through the huge changes on the farm.

“Our agreement has been rolled forward for a further five years, and we don’t have the establishment costs of GS4 now,” says Mr Mayhew.

“It’s a bit like organic conversion – you don’t expect to make a profit straight away. But if you take out mortgage debt, the business is profitable.”

Mob-grazing has been established by splitting the grazing platform into 60 paddocks to enable daily moves of cows, with rest intervals of 59 days.

This year, extra hay and haylage have been bought locally to top up forage supplies.

“Forage yields are not yet as good as they will be,” says Mrs Mayhew. “But three years in, with holistic management and improvements to the soil, we’re thrilled with how everything has gone.”