IN these times of low milk prices and a general gloom in the dairy sector, making a dairy farm into a working, viable business, might not seem like the easiest task. 
But for the Forsyth family, at Baltier, near Whithorn, their determination not to be beaten by market forces is proving a force to be reckoned with and they are making the most of their 530-cow herd. 
Having been at Baltier since 1964, the family has taken on increasing amounts of land and, having started with 220 acres, they now farm 620 acres, with a further 100 acres of rented land taken in the area. 
In 2010, they constructed a purpose-built dairy unit on a greenfield site on the farm that can house their 530 high yielding cows throughout the year. This is also home to a 50-point rotary milking parlour, state-of-the-art handling facilities and underground slurry storage that has the capacity to hold a massive 4m gallons of waste. 
The impressive set up recently played host to an NMR open day, which saw interested farmers and industry professionals come from far and wide to see how things work at Baltier, and listen to a number of dairy sector experts explain the ins and outs of some of the more technical side of the business and what goes on at such a large scale dairy set up. 
In the current economically volatile world of farming and with uncertainty in the dairy sector, the day aimed to help producers look more closely at their financial margins on farm and at other potential money making and/or saving opportunities that could allow them to maximise productivity, or in some case, just help them to continue trading. 
The four main topics of discussion were renewables, genomics, energy balance and individual cow management – all of which can play a marked role in fine-tuning finances and the herd's ability in both the short term and in the future, and all of which is part of the mix at Baltier. 
Under the careful eye of six full-time and one part-time member of staff, the herd at Baltier is currently averaging 12,600kg of milk production, at 4.1% butterfat and 3.15% protein. 
It produces this on a three times a day milking routine and with a TMR diet of grass silage, rapeseed meal, barley, straw, and a protein mix consisting of a combination of soya, minerals and fats. 
Breeding wise, the herd is all AI’d, with the bottom half of the females served to a British Blue and the top half served by high scoring sires based on type. 
The bulling heifers that are not AI’d run with an Angus bull from 14 months of age, with the aim of them having their first calf at around 24 month. 
The management team has recently started to genomic test heifers, with the hope that this will help them to pinpoint replacements for selection and allow them to breed to those traits which best suit their own specific requirements. 
By using genomics, the Forsyths aim to make calves between 65-70% more reliable in terms of health and fertility traits, and the hope is that genotyping can help to weed out weaker females, and perhaps remove them from the herd so that it can operate at as high a capacity as possible.
Calves at Baltier are fed four litres of pasteurised colostrum within four hours of birth and are given Halocur – a diarrhoea treatment – for their first seven days in a bid to avoid crypto. 
They also get an anti-pneumonia nasal vaccine, Rispoval, at nine days of age and this is followed up with an IBR booster at seven weeks – a combination which is aimed at giving them the best possible start and maintain herd health. 
As well as dairying, the farm also runs a 300-head herd of British Blue cross and Aberdeen-Angus cross stores that are sold through the market, and 700 store Blackface lambs are bought in and finished off grass each year. 
They grow 500 acres of first cut silage, 450 acres of second cut and 250 acres of third cut, along with 70 acres of spring barley as part of a five-year crop rotation. 
Livestock aside, the Forsyths have also diversified into renewables, and Baltier is now home to a 250 kW wind turbine and an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant that runs alongside it, with a 1000 kW biomass boiler currently in its final stages of installation. 
The hope is that these permanent farm fixtures will help to make the farm business more self-sufficient and efficient on a day-to-day basis. 
Their AD plant has two tanks that have capacity for 15,000 litres of slurry. They then add 5000 tonnes of solids – a combination of silage and barley, among other things – to fuel the process. 
The system is currently running at around 50% of capacity, but the hope is that it will be fully functional by the end of September and that at full potential it will produce sufficient energy to run the plant for eight hours per day. 
This use of technology is all in the mix of income now for the family and visitors to the open day were certainly impressed by how this combination of renewables and a modern dairy set up as on show at Baltier can help offset low milk prices and keep things going in times of adversity.