SHARING OPTIONS:
The Duguids cows which have been fed on straw and urea molases to lose condition over winter before calving this spring. Their diet cost £1.10/day
On a fine spring day, Robert Gilchrist and John Sleigh met with the Duguid family to discuss their preparations for calving and lambing.
With the snow gone from all but the coldest corners of parks, the spring-like weather at the end of February is the boost Arthur, Muriel and Scott need, as they get cows and sheep into condition for a successful spring.
Last autumn, the Duguids’ spring cow herd was scanned and body condition scored before being divided into three management groups. These groups were based on cow condition – fat, thin and moderate.
SHARING OPTIONS:
Andrew MacKay s May calving cows being fed out on the hill at his farm Greenvale in Caithness.
In 2016, the Gammies registered 32 calves across three different breeds/crosses. Come 2020, with the expansion plans well under way, they registered 74 calves from just one breed/cross. There are more than double the number of calves now being born on the farm.
In 2018, Andrew decided to simplify his suckler herd and concentrate on only Limousin genetics, backing his own pedigree breeding.
All calves born are either pure Limousin or Limousin-cross, with the crosses mainly coming from either Limousin-cross dams or Simmental-Fleckveih dams. This has simplified the system for Andrew and allowed him to concentrate on the animals that he feels suit the system best.
Mark s cows are on ad-lib baled silage.
This week, we headed to a dry and frosty Caithness to catch up with Mark and Shona MacKay at Greenvale on the very north coast of Scotland.
The 368ha unit has a mixture of land types, from good arable land that grows barley, to a sandy hill where Mark outwinters cattle, through to bog land that has been put into environmental schemes.
Mark and Shona have been increasing the productivity of the farm during the Farm Profit Programme.
The key to this has been expanding the suckler herd. In 2018, the MacKays registered 159 calves, while in 2020 this jumped to 191 calves. Explaining the rise, Mark said: “This year [2020] we registered 170 calves and as part of our expansion plan, we purchased 21 cows with calves at foot, giving 191 calves. Fourteen sets of twins also helped increase the number of calves registered.”