10 – 19 May

Another great 21 days for the cattle in the shed. They appear to be really flying now, for the second weighing in a row. The DLG in the shed has risen to 1.57 which is higher than what we achieved in the last trial as an average. There is not much between the breeds, although the Montys are now on top with 1.59 (since they have been on the farm) and the lowest is the Holstein with a very respectable 1.54. This week I got the ND2 Agric’s which I teach on a Wednesday to work out the weights of the cattle before they weighed them, the closest was Ben Turnbull who was only an average of 12kg out on each bull in his pen. On Tuesday we had a visit from Chris Walkland who writes for the Beef Farmer Magazine which is the official magazine of the National Beef Association. Hopefully an article will appear in the next edition!

3 – 9 May

May already, where has the spring gone? It certainly does not feel like spring at the moment. A quiet week in the beef shed this week, they got mucked out and the mill and mix came. We also had a visit from the National ASDA Suckler Strategy Group. Finally on Friday, James who has had the responsibility of feeding the bulls for this project and the last has left the college for pastures new in Scotland. The farm has since decided not to replace him and the responsibility has fallen on Andrew and Phil’s hands who are the two herdsmen on the farm. They already know the way to my heart, they said if I ever moan they will just buy me a pork pie to keep my happy!!!

26 – 2 April

It was a busy start of the week, cleaning and tiding for the arrival of Katrina Williams who is the DG of DEFRA. She came along on Tuesday along with her entourage and it was great to have someone as influential at the college looking at the beef project. Also special thanks to the three farmers who made the effort to come as well, especially David Holmes who then came back to York in the evening for the monthly meeting.

Mary Vickers from EBLEX took the meeting, which was classed as a mid season review. She analysed the results which we had to date and it was very interesting Unfortunately we did not have food, so it was off to the Nags Head in the village we went for a beer, I did not get home until 11.30

19 – 25 April

The students are back this week, its nice to have the place busy again, its always so quiet during the holidays around college. We weighed the cattle with the students again. Results are very encouraging and they seem to have really picked up.

I have been busy trying to get the study tour sorted in France, I really wish I listened a bit more in my French classes when I was at school. I have managed to get by and have hotels and flights booked, need a bus to transport us, a restaurant to eat and drink and we are there, oh and some cattle to look at, almost forgot!!!!

12 April

The Cattle are still going well, although we have had to remove another one of our Brown Swiss after the request from the Calgary Matadors. Number 41 again has never done any good since been on the farm and more recently gone backwards. It has been treated however never recovered and the team had made the decision to remove it. This is now the second one which we have had to remove for similar symptoms which goes to show the importance of calf rearing.

5 – 11 April

Well Easter came and went, it’s a quiet week in the beef shed this week, the students are off also this week so things are also fairly quiet around college. I have been trying to organise the study tour also this week. I have a few irons in the fire, we will wait and see what happens!

29 – 4 April

This week I have had two days over at the RAC at a conference titled "Managing University Farms". It proved to be an interesting couple of days and its good to see how all college of similar size seem to have the same issues which Mike the farm manager has at Askham Bryan. Wednesday I was back at work weighing the cattle, results can be seen on the net, growth rates as a general rule are good, the Montbeliards are not doing as well as I thought they might, but its still early days! One animal, No 10,  a Brown Swiss deserves a special mention as it has the highest growth rates, its doing an average 2.38 since its been on the farm and dwarfing all others in its pen now! In the evening we had our second part of the Cattle Handling meeting with Miriam. It was another very interesting evening and the teams came up with some different ideas for handling design! I guess the good turnout showed how good the first session was! Mill and mix also came in Thursday.

22 – 28 March

I had the day up in the Scottish Boarders on Monday looking around some sheds, it was a long day but very worthwhile. In the evening myself and two colleagues were in Leeds at the Evolution Awards. The first Fantasy Farming  project had been nominated for two awards, the first was for Bringing Fun To Learning category and the second one was Learning Without Walls category. Unfortunately we won neither however to be short listed to the last 5 in both category’s was a great achievement and we had a good night out on the back of it! Tuesday the mill and mix came and we tried out our new tote bin! We have just made a prototype however we are very happy with it and just need to make a few alterations to it. We have since given the go ahead for 10 to be made which will make feeding so much easier.

15 – 21 March

The first week back after a weeks holiday is always the hardest. I seemed to have a mountain of e mails however I made it through the other end and like in most cases it now feels like I have never been away. Richie came and sorted out the weigh scales so we are now up and running again. So we weighed the cattle on Thursday. It was good to get some accrete readings and are now up and running again!

8 - 14 March

A week off skiing!!!! The escapes have found a new home in our beef shed!!!! They seemed to have settled down a bit after their trip around the York countryside! When you are away for a week its good to come back and notice how much the cattle have grown.

1 – 7 March

On Wednesday we had our first of the two part cattle handing meeting. Miriam Parker from Livestockwise came up from Shropshire to take the meeting. It was a very informative meeting and a we learned a great deal, we decided that Keith Wilson would be the leader of the herd if we were all bulls! Miriam also brought some cattle goggles with her, which proved a very interesting experiment to see what the cattle can see. It was perfect timing as on Thursday we were chasing 10 limousin heifers around the Yorkshire countryside.

15 – 21 February

Two deaths in two weeks is not good! Our little donkey friend died, which is probably for the best, and I guess it made our minds up about it. Sometimes you get them that never do, and he was one of them. The vet PM’d it for us and it was acute pneumonia. It is probably something which he has had since he was little and never really recovered. If our last trial was anything to go by when you get animals like that you are better getting rid of them as they just cost you money in feed and yet never do anything. Any P grades when they are killed normally means that you will lose money!

8 – 14 February

We had another mill and mix this week, Mick Bartrum managed to find us some barley locally which has milled better than that we got from the feed company. The weigh scales have also been taken this week to be re calibrated. Richie did them up at Masham, we just have to put them back together again now! We also had a first death this week, and we have also had to put our little donkey friend (60) into an isolation pen - he always looks miserable although never seems to have a temperature. We will just have to see how he gets on.

1 – 7 February

We had the big weigh-in on Wednesday. Some animals did better than others, with the Monties coming out best of breed. The farmers were also here this week to our monthly meeting. This month we went international (well nearly). Neal Darwent was the speaker who we flew in from Bristol. Neal is farm manager on a 450 head dairy herd who milks dual purpose cows. He gave a very interesting insight into the breed. It definitely gave the guys, especially the dairy boys, plenty of food for thought!

25 – 31 January

Pneumonia seems to have settled down a bit now which is good. Had a very interesting visit from some people from RASE and also from West Midlands Lantra. They had heard good things about the project and want to check it out to see if it could maybe be repeated down in the West  Midlands.

18 – 24 January

Having a few problems with pneumonia in the shed. The foggy and still days aren’t really helping. Mill and mix has also been for the first time, we mixed a ton for each pen so should last a while. Barley is still getting too well processed; we need to start to maybe find some barley from a local farmer who will not have dried it as much?

11 – 17 January

Finally the new beef trial is up and running. We had a good talk from Kenneth Wilsons on alternative feeds, it  even got a little heated at one point! The pens have all been drawn also. Most people I think were fairly happy but there are always one or two that don’t like their pens!