Our annual farm assurance assessment was completed last week. Thankfully, no major issues were raised, although it was mentioned that medicine records were not completely up to date and the livestock trailer wasn’t clean.

Hands up with regard to the medicine records – while all the required information had been recorded in my notebook that’s kept in my boiler suit pocket, the detail had not been transferred to the official medicine book for the past couple of months.

With regard to the livestock trailer, it had been used the evening prior to the assessment.

With the temperature hitting -5°C that night, strangely I didn’t have much notion of washing it out.

Having seen some very dirty cattle presented at markets over the previous few weeks, more notice seems to be taken of cleanliness of transport, rather than the animals themselves.

Trouble

Machinery and vehicles continue to give more trouble than I’d like. With the decision to take our cattle to market rather than using a haulier, we looked at renewing the farm pickup in September 2016.

Although the new Ford has proved to be a comfortable and very capable vehicle in terms of ability, very often towing close to the limit of 3.5t, unfortunately reliability has not been as impressive.

That resulted in a cloud of smoke engulfing the vehicle as we came to a halt coming off the motorway at Stirling

We have had a couple of manufacturer recalls, along with additional visits to the dealer for replacement ABS sensors, replacement glow plugs to address poor starting in cold weather, and then a failure of the compressor for the air conditioning unit.

That resulted in a cloud of smoke engulfing the vehicle as we came to a halt coming off the motorway at Stirling, when selling our latest load of cattle.

Fortunately, all the repairs have been covered under warranty, but have resulted in a loss of confidence in the pickup, and at this stage I’m reluctant to keep it beyond September of this year when the warranty runs out.

Winter

I hope I don’t regret saying it, but winter seems to be slipping by without too much drama weather-wise.

I’m well aware how things can go seriously pear-shaped from here on in, but surely we are well past the halfway point and can be justified in counting down to turnout.

Stock are now looking and performing much better, and suckled calves in particular are really starting to motor, having struggled up to mid-January.

Sometimes I think this has more to do with the hours of daylight increasing rather than anything else.

We’ll be lambing double the number from last year, with 33 ewes and ewe lambs put to the tup

The cattle sold in January met a surprisingly good trade.

My expectations had been pretty low, but with calves weighing well and an improvement on trade, we returned relatively happy.

With calving and lambing approaching rapidly, I’m hoping to get sheds mucked out and ready over the next week or two.

We’ll be lambing double the number from last year, with 33 ewes and ewe lambs put to the tup.

We don’t have the scope to increase numbers much beyond this, unless it’s at the expense of the cattle, but given the costs involved in rearing suckled calves that will remain an option.

From the amount of suckler cows that I hear being removed off farms, I’ve got serious concerns for the future sustainability of the beef sector unless support is refocused on those actively farming and producing food.