Farmer Writes: hiccups with the contract heifers

After four trouble-free years of contract rearing dairy heifers a couple of issues emerged this year, writes Derek Robinson.

2 December 2020

These heifer calves were housed on Friday 13 November, due to persistently wet weather. After a year when we had problems with Blackleg in the young ones and TB in the older batch, the chosen date may raise a few eyebrows among superstitious folk.

A word of advice for anyone entering into a heifer-rearing arrangement between two parties:

The most important bit of the agreement is not physical parameters, price per day, or any of the stipulated parts of the contract.

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