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Down in Devon
August 2007
Hello to everyone from Down in Devon.
I'm delighted to tell you that the cows went out to grass again
by day and night on the 1st August, I think they were just as pleased to be out as we were to see them out again. Luckily as soon as they got green grass inside them the milk went up by about 250 to
300 litres a day.
On the 2nd August we started mowing our 2nd cut silage we had about
130 acres left to do, the ground wasn't really dry enough but we felt we had to do it whatever. We managed to get about 100 acres in for clamp silage and round baled the last 30 acres, because
crops were so heavy. The grass quality is well down on normal but we put on a silage additive and are just hoping this will help to produce the winters milk.
August has been a very busy month, as soon as the silage and round
baling was done the corn harvest started. We buy about 35 acres of straw from behind the combine and bale it ourselves, a lot of the straw had gone down because of all the rain and wind in July so
bale numbers were down on last year, but we think we will have enough to last for this winters bedding. After the straw harvest we started dung spreading on the silage grass stubble, this took us
about a week and hopefully will grow some cheap Autumn grass.
We had some good news about milk prices, Dairy Crest wrote to us
saying that because of booming worldwide demand for all dairy products, especially in Asia (mainly China and India) they were going to put the price of milk up by 2p a litre as from 1st
September. This is very welcome because corn prices have nearly doubled this year because of the poor weather and also demand from Asia, so cattle feed prices are set to rise the equivalent ofabout
1.5p per litre. Hopefully grain farmers and dairy farmers will all have a bit more money left in the pot!
Foot and Mouth.
On the 3rd August we could not believe what we heard on the news,
Foot and Mouth was back in the U.K. A shiver went right up my backbone because so many of our friends in and around our village were taken out by the last out-break in 2001. We were lucky and
managed to stay clear but we will never forget the sights and smells of the cattle pyres, they were mainly lit at night and we would have to close all the windows but the smell seemed to linger for
weeks. One of our neighbours was taken out as a dangerous contact case, a huge pyre was built, the day before the pyre was to be lit, all the sheep and cattle were slaughtered. Three of the
neighbours sheep had been on our farm all of that winter, they had broken through a bad bit of fencing, this didn't worry us too much until we saw from our farmyard all these men in those white
boiler suits walking down across our fields rounding them up for slaughter, this was too close for comfort, and had the contiguous cull rule been brought in at that time, our cattle would probably have
been slaughtered. Our thoughts have been with the farmers and their families in the Surrey area, as we fully appreciate the pressures and strains Foot and Mouth brings to everyday farming life.
On a lighter note we have just managed during the last week of
August to take our yearly weeks holiday. The first part of the week we spent in Somerset with friends, the last part we spent locally in our touring caravan with day trips to our nearby picturesque
beaches. It was great!!!
All the best
From Steve, Down in Devon.
P.S. I'm sorry there are no market report prices this
month, this is due to the nationwide Foot and Mouth movement restrictions.
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