Matthew Milne discusses the dry weather and prepping for sales

This year, we have decided to take a year away from exhibiting our Charolais at the local shows, as many are clashing with other events, one of which is judging the National Irish Charolais show in Tullamore this weekend, which I am thoroughly looking forward to.  I judged this a few years ago and was blown away by the numbers and enthusiasm the Irish have for showing cattle.  After a quick flick through the schedule, it’s clear to see the prize money involved in this show is phenomenal with class winners lifting €200 for winning their class.  Showing cattle involves a great deal of work and time and rewards like this make it worthwhile.  As livestock numbers dwindle at our local shows, we should maybe take a leaf out of our Irish counterpart’s book to try and rejuvenate this.

On the farm, we had some much-needed rainfall last week – this year’s rainfall is around 381mm to date,  which is average for Moray.  Our cows are running out of grass rapidly so hopefully the rain, plus some fertiliser I applied will encourage some late summer growth.  I feel for those in the south who are suffering from the drought situation.  For some of the farms this is the second dry year in a row, and I know if I had suffered again like last year, things would be very serious. I do hope they see some rain soon. 

The silage pit is full which is a comforting sight. We harvested our whole crop a fortnight ago, a mixture of spring barley, Westerwolds and Italian ryegrass and our usual grass seed mixture.  It was our first year trying this and although the bulk was impressive, next year we will cut the barley seed rate back a little more to allow a better take of grass as there are patchy bits throughout which will need stitched in.  Our spring barley is now ripening quickly, and our harvest will not be too far away.  Morayshire although dry has faired much better than a year ago and for those cutting winter barley crops there have been much improved yields of both barley and straw.

The cattle are all thriving well. The bulls will be taken away from the commercial cows in the coming weeks and hopefully they will be well covered.  All the commercial calves are now getting some creep feeding. I am a firm believer in this as it not only improves growth rates but considerably reduces stress at weaning.  Our backend pure Charolais bull calves are weaned but I tend to leave the heifer calves on the cows for another month in an attempt to reduce the chance of mastitis in the cows. 

Thoughts are now turning to the bull sales in October and we’re currently looking to enter three or four. They were taken inside last week so halter training can begin. It’s a bit like young men though, some are harder to educate than others! It’s heartening to see the beef price starting to firm again.  Store cattle sales are again buoyant hopefully the finished cattle continue to strengthen so there is a margin for everyone involved.  As cow numbers continue to fall bull breeders must be very selective and cull hard to reduce large entries at sales, which should result in better averages and clearance rates for all involved.  

On Saturday, I attended a double celebration at my in-law’s farm at Allanfauld – 100 years of the MacGregors farming there and 50 years of wedded bliss for Archie and Libby.  Not only can Archie breed phenomenal cattle and sheep but along with Libby can produce exceptional human beings! They now have 16 grandchildren, I don’t think there will be any more, certainly no Milnes anyway! Everyone enjoyed the usual Allanfauld hospitality which went on into the wee small hours. 

It will be interesting to see what lies ahead for us all in the next 100 years in farming – hopefully we will get to a stage where food production is valued by our government and the general population appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into putting food on their plates.