Archived News

17th January 2013

It’s been a quiet start to the year with the usual feeding and checking livestock, bedding up for those in barns and breaking ice in water troughs. 

We’ve been relatively lucky with the weather this week having avoided any snow disruption so far, but temperatures have been between zero and minus 3 degrees during the day, made to feel bitterly cold by the wind on Tuesday.

Whilst Donald is away the remaining staff have been covering his work, feeding and bedding up some of the cattle which are overwintered in barns. They seem to have an efficient routine in place and have completed their own work as well! : dehorning calves, moving organic fertiliser to fields and winter grain store maintenance.

The vet came on 7^th January to PD some Belted Galloway cows at West Lawn; this group of ten cows are grazing extensively the fields to the south and west of Abinger Roughs.

Don’t be confused if you see a Belgian Blue cow (Flo) with the Belted Galloways as she has been with us for a few years now and is a great leader of the group, literally if we need the cows to come in, the others will follow her!

The results of this pregnancy diagnosing is approximate: Flo is 2.5 months in calf, seven Belted Galloways are 2.5 – 3 months in calf but Milly and Buttercup are not in calf; Buttercup had been given another chance with the bull as she wasn’t in calf at the last attempt. 

Some bloods were taken from Buttercup to test her for BVD, Leptospirosis and IBR, any of which might cause infertility.

Milly will be put back to the bull and hopefully she will take next time.

Our Belted Galloways are grazed extensively creating a diverse sward structure with many niches for insects and plants to thrive in.  We have 58 Belties on farm which are in seven grazing groups for animal husbandry and grazing management.

This is Duncan, one of Park Pheonix's calves without his belt!

Five calves at Netley will soon be weaned; they will remain in a small group to begin with and then join one of the breeding groups in about a year’s time.

A few people have contacted me about the cattle over-wintering (inside a new fence) on the Roughs but they are not ours; they are due to graze Leith Hill for the National Trust from spring time.

I have just had a call from Michael Fordham our farming friend who diversified into a wonderful farm shop and butchery.  Michael and his team have been butchering and boxing my Beltie Beef for six years but have now made the decision to leave farming and sell up.  As Michael said, when you only have two years out ten with any satisfactory income it just becomes untenable.  Farmers cannot keep subsidising the food industry and supermarkets.

The farming community will miss Kathy and Michael as they put 110% into farming and local food production and get involved in national initiatives such as Farming and Countryside Education (where I first met Kathy) and the National Farmers Union (where Laurence and Michael have spent many hours debating farming policy).  Finally but definitely not least, they’ve been a great help and inspiration to me on my ‘beef journey’!