PRODUCING QUALITY home-grown silage is a top priority for the Drummond family – John and Margaret and sons John, George and Robert – who aim for a low-cost, efficient system across their four neighbouring farms in south Ayrshire.

Last year, first-cut silage taken from one of their two British Friesian dairy units, Townend, at Craigie, proved particularly high quality, securing them the champion award at the South-west Scotland silage competition, in their first year as entrants – the farthest north that the top prize has gone for several years.

The winning silage – a sample of which also finished second overall at Agri-scot – yielded a Dry Matter of 24.69%, with a D-value of 76% and an ME of 12.16MJ/kg. Protein content was especially high, at 18.5%, while pH levelled at 3.7.

“We always aim to make good silage, but last year’s turned out particularly good. Obviously the weather makes a difference, but there were a few other changes we made,” explained John Drummond Jnr, who farms at Townend, while his brother George is based at Bennals Farm, and youngest brother Robert is at the family’s other dairy unit, Midton.

“For the first time in a few years, we didn’t use an additive, and instead, we put the money we saved from that, towards a bigger tedder, a Lely 10.20 trailed. We also hired in a Claas front and back mower in addition to our own Krone front and back one, which sped up the cutting process. Overall, this gave us a much quicker throughput and allowed the grass longer to wilt – 36 hours in total,” added John.

Slurry is spread, via an umbilical cord, in a split application, 1500 gallons at the end of January and again mid-March, then fertiliser at the end of March.

“We feel the slower release allows for better intake and utilisation, it gives the grass time to take it all in,” John explained.

Another major alteration recently has been the family’s shift from big bale silage to pit silage. They felt that the round bale silage tended to loose its quality through time, while in the pit it keeps better. Furthermore, this switch meant that they were able to build a pit that was specific to their needs. Designed and built by John’s father-in-law, Willie Smith, the 260ft x 50ft covered pit has a specially designed floor which allows the effluent to drain away from the bottom of the silage.

“The design works really well, it keeps the silage consistent all the way through and there’s no effluent running out of it. It’s easy to manage too, we can put extra silage on the top and it still works the same,” said John.

The family take three cuts of silage a year, on or around May 19, July 12 and September 18, and once in the pit, it’s double covered – first with Silo film, which fits tightly to the silage and keeps the air out, then with a black sheet, and finally, a green secure cover goes over that.

The close proximity between the Drummonds’ farms enables them to work together and share equipment, which means no extra staff are needed, except contractors at silage time. Between their two dairy herds, Craigtown and Midton, the family milk 430 British Friesians, which yield an average 7000kg, at 4.3% BF and 3.7% P.

“If we can get the base quality of our silage up, it reduces the amount of feeding we have to buy in, so that’s always our aim. In last year’s batch, the protein was particularly high, which saved us a lot of money,” explained Robert.

The cattle are fed 30kg of the grass silage, topped up with 7kg of home blend, plus supergrains. “We’re in an ideal grass growing area, so we try to get the most out of our grass that we can. We rotate it every five years, which is really important to keep up the quality of the sugars,” added John.

Half of the herd go to the dairy bull and the rest go to a Limousin sire, with those heifer calves sold as suckler replacements, while the bulls are fattened and sold at 14-months through AK Stoddart, averaging just over 300kg/dw and mainly grading R3.

“By keeping the bulls entire, we get a quicker turnaround and it means we don’t have to take extra grass, plus we feed them on home-grown silage and barley, so it’s a low-cost system.”

The herd sticks to a tight calving pattern of 356 days and by keeping the pure heifer calves, the family is currently building up the numbers in the dairy herd. John says there’s also a steady demand for Friesian stock bulls, which are mainly sold privately.

“We aim to run a simple but effective system and the Friesians suit that perfectly, allowing us to be as self-sufficient as possible. Their food intake is around 15kg less than the Holstein and they produce high quality milk.

“They’re a low maintenance breed that last an average of 5.2 lactations, and we can also make a premium on them as cast cows, plus we can get a £250-£300 premium on the cross calves, compared to other dairy crosses,” said John, who hopes that the forthcoming silage crop will maintain the standard of last year’s prize-winning cut!