Notes from the Farm - January 2024

FROM RICHARD SMITH

Farm Managing Director

Cold temperatures, frost and hard ground are to be expected in January. This year we also experienced flooding, so many farming jobs were not possible in the past month. Most of January was spent doing general maintenance and getting ready for the spring months, such as servicing machines, repairing fences, clearing drains, planning crops and ordering seeds. The farming team also had to manage the key tasks explained below.

A NEW PEDIGREE BULL 

We were delighted to welcome Albert to our organic dairy herd of traditional British Friesians. Breeding season starts in December/January each year and we usually crossbreed our British Friesian dairy cows with Hereford bulls. Albert is 16 months old and comes from a pedigree line of show-winning Hereford stock. He will spend this year with our heifers, producing Hereford cross beef calves for our beef enterprise, some of which will become mothers themselves. Our heifers have already taken a shine to Albert, and he is settling in nicely in his new home.

SCANNING THE EWES

We brought all the pregnant ewes at Daylesford and Wootton farms indoors in January, in preparation for lambing in the spring. 

Once they’re in, it takes a team of four people two days to shear the entire flock of 1500. Shearing prepares the ewes for scanning and makes sure they do not overheat in the warm lambing barns.  

An amazingly quick, highly skilled technician scans each ewe individually, and we then use a dab of paint to mark the flock and organise our lambing barns: 

• Orange – not pregnant
• Red – single lamb
• No colour – twins (most of the flock will be expecting twins, so why waste the paint!)
• Blue – triplets
• A blue “4”: quadruplets

PEDICURE TIME

Foot health is an important part of high welfare farming systems, and we give all the animals in our organic beef herd a thorough pedicure every year. Earlier this month we guided the cows and bulls one by one through a special apparatus which gently holds each foot in turn, so we may inspect the hooves for any lesions, infections or overgrowth, trimming and treating where needed. Because our animals spend much of their time on our organic pastures, which are soft underfoot and do not strain their legs and feet, our herd rarely suffers from lesions or infections. 

The annual pedicure is not done for aesthetic reasons; keeping hooves in check has significant health benefits including helping the animals achieve proper, comfortable posture and preventing painful, harmful injuries, lameness and other serious problems.

WINTER CITRUS

Fresh, bright and juicy organic lemons, mandarins, bergamots and blood oranges are a feast for the senses at this time of year. Our resident nutritionist points out that seasonal citrus fruits and other whole foods with sour and bitter flavours are known to help support gut health, digestion and stimulate the liver. Squeeze their juice over salads, add to drinks and soups, use the zest to perk up casseroles and reach for easy-to-peel fruits for healthy snacking.