The Farmers Journal caught up with Mark and Shona MacKay on this year’s calving and their silage plans for 2020. Mark and Shona run a cattle farm in Caithness.

After a bumper silage crop in 2019, Mark has significant amounts left with all the cows out at grass already.

“We have 600 bales and a third of a the pit left after this winter,” said Mark.

However, there isn’t much option to cut back production this year as Mark rents silage ground which is under an environmental scheme. This means he cannot cut the grass until 1 July so the 23ha of silage will be similar to last year.

Mark said: “This is the last year of the scheme so if we have a big carry over next year we can adjust.”

Silage costs around £38/ac for Mark.

The baled silage ground typically yields 15 bales an acre, with each bale weighing around 650kg.

The majority of the silage is pitted and the contractor provides all the equipment from mowing to filling the pit with Mark only providing a couple tractors to cart off. This comes to around £38/ha.

Mark cuts one day and leaves to wilt before lifting it 24 hours later. The contractor usually covers around 10 acres an hour with a Claas Jaguar self-propelled forage harvester.

Mark has around one third of a silage pit left after winter along with 600 wrapped bales.

Young farmer support

Caithness young farmers offer to cover silage pits for around £1/acre, which Mark takes advantage of when it fits in.

Mark gets help from the local young farmers to cover the silage pit.

The pit gets covered in two hours and being so close to the north coast of Scotland the wind provides an additional challenge. He uses a single black cover and tyres. Again the wind makes it enough of a challenge getting a single sheet over the grass so Mark doesn’t think the double skin options is worth it for him.

Spring calvers

Mark has had a successful spring calving, with the same number of calves as cows. The spring herd had double the number of twins than usual with 13 sets out of 122 cows, which is over 10%. Mark put out two sets of twins with their mothers as they have plenty milk. However he has been left with six pet calves which his two daughters love looking after. Mark lost two cows, one with a dead calf inside her and another had a bed which came out.

Early start

The dry spring allowed cows to start going out on 14 April this year, with all the spring calves in the parks by 22 April.

This is the same as last year which is a couple of weeks earlier than typical in Caithness.

Mark MacKay and Robert Gilchrist on his farm in Caithness.

The cattle are put on to 7ac paddocks in batches of 27 cows. Mark explained that the grass is still very green and not too long so the cows are doing well.

He said: “They are yet to go into their third paddock the grass has been so good.”

This week’s challenge has been some early signs of a coccidiosis outbreak. Mark has taken all the cattle in and dosed the calves with Vecoxan.

New shed

Mark is hoping for a new shed up by winter. Planning is already submitted for the 120ft by 75ft cattle shed for his cows. It is a simple structure for straw bedded courts which Mark feels is best for his calving cows.

The cost of the shed is £72,000 (excluding concrete floor, barriers, panels, electrical work or planning and building warrant).

Sowing fodder beet

As cattle go out across much of the country winter feeding is fading fast.

Sowing fodderbeet.
But preparations for next year are already needed. Here we have fodder beet being planted in Aberdeenshire. The ground was ploughed earlier in the year before rolling, spading rolling and finally cultivating to make an even seed bed for the beet.

The fodder beet was sown on the flat at 30mm depth. It was sown in 0.5m rows at a rate of 120k plants per hectare or 12 plants a square metre. This gives 12 plants for every two metres of a row with 167mm between each plant. Farmers Journal will be following the fodder beet crop through the year as it grows into a winter fodder crop for livestock.