FARMER FOCUS: Farm tasks feel like Olympic heptathlon

The past few weeks here at Rowreagh Farm have been like competing in the Olympic heptathlon events.

We’ve made our third cut of grass silage, along with 17ha whole crop winter wheat. The winter barley has been combined, rolled and treated with propionic acid to preseve it over the winter for feeding in the milking cows’ ration with a balancer blend. We have also just completed the building of a new grain/straights shed. >

The warm weather didn’t help with concrete laying, but fortunately our builder and concrete-layer worked late in the evenings and through the night when it was cooler. Many nights they were here working when I went to bed and were still here when I arrived for morning milking.

Before we stored grain at an outfarm and had to haul it back as and when we needed it. We mix our own blend on farm and so straights normally come in small loads, are tipped outside, and then pushed into a small shed. It’s fine when the sun is shining on a nice calm day, but not so good when its lashing down rain and in gale force winds. The shed now allows lorries to drive in and tip with no problem. Hopefully our suppliers will bear this in mind when formulating their prices.

Added to this hectic work load was the start of our calving season, with so far 50 cows calving in the first three weeks. At the minute we are running at around 50:50 bulls and heifers. All heifers are kept for replacements and bulls are sold for export from 21 days’ old, but with prices only making £40-50, it’s taking this much to rear them alone.

Then finally, thrown in for good measure, it was our open day, organised by RABDF and NMR. We had a great turnout, with well over 500 people attending the event and 20 trade stands. It was nice to see people from all over Ireland and the UK attending and Colin Mckee did an excellent job catering for the event.

I’m not sure if after all that we won gold, silver or bronze, but like most athletes, it’s straight back to the grind stone.

Thomas Steele milks 450 Holstein Friesian cows on a 263ha farm in Co Down, Northern Ireland. He was 2012 Farmers Weekly Dairy Farmer of the Year

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