Big Muddy rancher said:
Yale said:
Hi,in the UK we are probably an average family farm (a lot smaller scale than most i see on here).We run around 50 suckler cows,mainly pedigree Limousin rearing the bulls intensively to slaughter at 16 months with the heifers being reared as replacements and beef.
We also keep 600 breeding ewes which will give just less than a 1000 lambs for sale per year.
It is an upland type farm running from 800ft to 1300ft above sea level,mainly grass with a small area down to swedes for lamb keep in the winter.
OK I gotta ask what is"a small area down to swedes for lamb keep in the winter. ?
We grow 14 acres of swedes as the field we are cultivating at the moment is this size.Generally it is between 9 and 14.
Usually we roundup the grass field then plough it,cultivate then precision drill the swedes.
We changed systems last year spraying a silage grass crop then after 5 days cutting it and harvesting it.Then we direct drilled the stubble with an Aichson (made in New Zealand) drill.The crop came quite well but suffered from a dry spell when it was germinating.
This year we have sprayed the field after the winter with roundup then used the same process of direct drilling.The weather has been kind and quite honestly it is looking to be the best established crop we have ever grown.Very pleased,just wish i was better with tech stuff to put a picture on here.