Archived News

18th July 2008

We have put out feelers to buy some more Belted Galloway cattle in order to increase our suckler herd.   We spoke to Keith Jempson at the Surrey County Show and he said he would keep an eye out for us and I have been following up other leads, speaking to farmers selling the odd few cattle and one man who had just sold about thirty at auction - too late for those!  Then about two weeks ago we had a call from Keith who had heard of a small herd for sale in the south west.   Before considering this herd we asked Keith to make inquiries about the TB status in the area because we have to be sure that this herd is free from TB. 

We met up with Keith this week and took a look at the cattle which have been overwintered in a barn and should benefit greatly from going out to grass.  As the owner lives in another county we were shown the herd by a farm hand and then spent an hour or so making our own assessment of the cows and calves, checking the condition of each animal against the paperwork.

 After some discussion amongst ourselves, our offer was to made the owner by telephone and a deal was done.  Subject to all the calves being registered as pedigree with the Belted Galloway Society, a letter confirming the pedigree bull, all passports in order and some vaccination details for bluetongue, we hope to have the extra twelve cows and nine calves arriving in a couple of weeks.

The combine harvester is being serviced at the moment.  All working parts of the combine harvester and the cutter bar are gone over carefully by two specialist mechanics; one young man who went to Sparshalt Agricultural college to train for three years and the other who is completing a four year apprenticeship with CLASS.

The combine wasn’t washed down after it was used a couple of months ago and this has resulted in rats eating grain in the cutter bar and nibbling their way through a number of wires.  Various parts have been ordered and the combine should soon be ready for this season’s harvest.

Preparation for harvest will keep us occupied this week, with tractors and trailers being repaired and all the grain stores being cleaned.  After sweeping out, the grain stores are also vacuumed to be sure they are as clean as possible before the grain comes in (no, not with a Dyson or Henry but an industrial type machine that looks like it’s just come off the set of Doctor Who).