March 2021: Herdsman's Update

Robin Hall

In January two farmers from Plaw Hatch were due to attend a training course in Somerset. This was postponed due to “Lockdown”. Last week Maya (our arable farmer and relief milker) and I were finally able to attend a three-day practical training in Artificial Insemination for cows. Although Plaw Hatch has been breeding cows with AI for many years this has always been done by a visiting technician. Now we will bring this important activity in-house, and the work will be carried out by myself and Maya. At Plaw Hatch, we run a closed herd which means that we do not buy cows and therefore breed our own. There are several advantages with this policy; it reduces the risk of disease arriving on the farm, it means the cows form a family group who have all been raised here, and it avoids the stress that can occur when mixing groups of unrelated cattle.

Although we have a Sussex bull called Winston, he is a beef breed and cannot sire cows that are suitable for milking. It is important to recognise that beef and dairy breeds have distinctly different characteristics and this is the result of generations of selective breeding. So, why not get a dairy bull? There are two principal reasons not to have a dairy bull. Firstly, the bull would need to be replaced approximately every three years so that he was not breeding with his daughters. Secondly, dairy bulls can actually be quite dangerous, and this is not a risk we can have on a community farm.

One of the advantages of AI is that we can utilise several bulls and increase the diversity in the herd, without the need to travel them here which would cause them, and our established herd, a huge amount of stress. Although the herd is predominantly Meuse Rhine Issel, there are also Montbeliarde crosses and Red Dane crosses. As the presence of Danish Red (all brown, often with a white udder) has been diminishing over the years, the plan is to breed a few more of these lovely cows.