This spring has been a lot easier. The main downside was cold night temperatures, which kept the soil temperatures low when the cows first went out, resulting in slow grass growth.

Coupled with an increased herd size going into paddocks not really big enough, it meant we continued buffer feeding for two months.

At last, the grass has seemed to have taken off.

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We have managed the silage-making by doing 50ac of new leys early on followed by another 100ac two weeks later. This did not pass without incident.

Firstly, progress was slow because a bearing going in the forage harvester was breaking down and the bits of metal kept halting the machine.

This meant progress was slow and we took three days rather than two. I always ask for two loading shovels to be on the clamp because with the grass coming in at 15t every 10 minutes, I want to be confident it spreads thin enough and is compacted enough.

I don’t think this can be achieved with the loading shovel and a tractor. Unfortunately, the contractor was unable to provide a second machine, so I brought one in from a rival gang not realising a different work ethic resulted in physical conflict between the two drivers.

Mastitis

Having had a bit of a mastitis problem due to cluster flushes not working correctly and not being repaired quick enough, we seem to be back on track, except having to graze some leys that had been fertilised for a second cut where urea levels rose dramatically.

We are fortunate that our milk buyer sends us daily milk quality reports, which really helps managing the nutrition.

I have a neighbour who is 80 years old and with the help of his son is milking 150 cows in an abreast parlour. His accountant is very impressed with his financial figures at the end of the year, but I think back to many years ago when one of the farming bodies did the survey on the cost of milk production per litre.

At the time, I think the price of milk was 29p. Cost of production varied from 19p to 90p. Why 90? Mum, dad, granddad, son and daughter all living in the same house living frugally limited social life, etc.

When the full costs of wages were entered into the scenario, the financial results looked vastly different. I milked for 40 years milking in an 8:8 herringbone parlour thinking I was saving money. In 2017, we put in a 20:20 parlour and wished I’d done it 20 years sooner.

To date, we have about half our winter requirements in store.

I’m still waiting on 100ac of Westerwolds planted this spring by a neighbour, which we were hoping to harvest at some point, whether dependent.