Farmer Focus: Calf sales and fertiliser were extremes of my year

I’ve been looking back on the highs and lows of 2023: the year I spread the most expensive fertiliser I have ever bought.

I stupidly bought my whole year’s supply in October 2022. By the time I was spreading the last of it in July 2023, it was going on in lumps – and I could have bought fresh fertiliser then for £300-£400/t less than I had paid. Hindsight is great!

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About the author

Steven Sandison

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Steven Sandison farms 90 Simmental and Salers-cross suckler cows on the Orkney Islands in partnership with his wife, Lorraine, on 134ha (330 acres). They have a 150-ewe flock of Shetland cross Cheviot ewes. Maximising grass is a priority.

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The biggest highlight was probably selling calves (£1,092 average).

Rising beef prices and easing feed prices seemed a perfect storm for store cattle. It was good to get a reward after an expensive two years.

Despite a bit of bull trouble in the summer, scanning went reasonably well.

Five empty out of 105 was better than I expected.

Usually, our cows and heifers eat arable silage until Christmas, before going onto ad-lib grass silage.

Because we didn’t have so much arable this year, they started on grass silage a month earlier and are already in good fettle. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on calving.

Our annual farm assurance visit usually requires something which wasn’t needed last year, and this year it was a health plan signed by the vet.

I’ve heard them described as a waste of paper, but I found it useful to sit down with the vet and go over things, especially after all the issues we have had with the sheep.

I found a pie chart of our antibiotics use particularly interesting. We hadn’t given them this information.

They looked up what we had bought over the previous 12 months.

I’m hoping they will use ScotEID to find stock numbers, losses, calving intervals and sales in the future. It would save the farmers scratching their heads for a few hours and would be accurate.

Across Orkney there have been seven different tractor runs this festive period.

There have even been mini tractor runs in residential care homes with pedal tractors.

Since the first event in 2021, more than £100,000 has now been raised for several charities.

They are great events for brightening up a dark winter’s night and bringing some cheer to people of all ages.