The spring barley in the picture was sown on 7 April. This is the latest that I can remember us making a start to spring sowing. We are lucky to have some light sandy soil which dries out quite quickly. In a wet season like this one, we are one of the first in this area to be able to get going. Quite a few crops are now beginning to emerge, but those on heavier land are only just making a start in the last few days of April. Thankfully, the college refrained from issuing their usual press release towards the end of April, saying that sowing from now on will probably face a yield penalty. This year, we are sowing Propino and Planet. Propino has been a good early variety for us, but Planet yielded very well on its first outing with us last year. We still have plenty of muck to spread and ploughing to be done so I think we will struggle to be finished by the IACS deadline day.

In my last article, I said we had 32 live calves from 32 heifers. We had a dead calf the very next day – well, it only lived for a few minutes after calving. We have had a few losses – some of them weather-related. The grass fields where we calve the cows turned into mud with some grass towards the end of March. We have heavy rolled them now they have dried out a bit, which has helped the remaining grass to stay in contact with the soil. They will need reseeding though.

Our quad bike obviously hadn’t been enjoying the extremely bumpy conditions as it lost a wheel yesterday! One hundred and forty of the 190 cows calved in just over three weeks which was good. I will give you a breakdown of the final calving figures in my next article. There has been some more interest in Stabiliser cattle, as everyone tries to become more efficient. We have sold three batches of bulling heifers, which should help cashflow at this time of year.

We have also sold silage bales but have now run out of straw and will have to buy in until harvest time. It has been quite remarkable that the local prices for straw, silage and hay bales have all been around the £20 mark.

On the pig side, we are about to embark on a partial de-population in order to reduce disease on our unit. This involves removing all growing pigs to other sites, with only sows and suckling piglets remaining. The growing pig sheds then need to be thoroughly cleaned, disinfected and rested to eliminate any lingering bugs. There are over 5,000 pigs to be accommodated and so far, we have been struggling to find places for them. We have managed to sell 1,500 weaners to others, but the lack of accommodation is starting to become a bit of a worry.

Most of our pigs go to Woodheads and they want all pigs supplied to them to be antibiotic-free by 2020. Of course, they already are antibiotic-free, but this means even if they have been jabbed for a sore leg, then they won’t qualify.

We will probably have to tag them and wait for the resulting price penalty. Oh the joys of being a price taker!