Welcome to our May newsletter 

The first half of May has been very dry and this followed the driest April since 2018 according to my rain gauge. We took this opportunity to spread some of our dirty water. Now, before you scroll down the page to find something more interesting, and I admit this may not seem like the most thrilling subject to read about while drinking your morning coffee, but to a farmer it’s really important!

It’s basically all the yard water that will have drained from areas where dung may be, as well as any liquid that comes out of the silage clamp, dung store or cow sheds. On some farms this would also include liquid that may form on the top of slurry lagoons. All farmers go to great lengths to separate this dirty water from clean water from roofs and most have drainage systems to separate the two.

This dirty water has to be stored and can’t be spread through the winter as this would make it more likely to contaminate water courses. 10 years ago, we spent an eye watering amount on a new storage tank for dirty water which holds 1000 cubic meters and last year we did a major upgrade to the sump tank at the lowest point of the farm where the liquid is pumped  up to the big storage tank from.

There are various methods to spreading this water and regulations are tightening on how you can do it. Spraying it on is being phased out for environmental reasons in favour of cutting a slot and injecting it in or (as we did) dribbling it directly onto the pasture. We used a contractor with a 17 cubic meter tanker and a wide bar on the back with 32 hoses spaced about 6” apart. This kit did an amazing job and by the end of the day the tank was empty. Unless we have an exceptionally dry summer we’ll empty the tank before winter to ensure we have maximum capacity available. 

The nutrients in this water are valuable and should give the grass a real boost which may be handy if it stays dry.

Cattle

As many of you know here at Park Farm, we are in a farming partnership with my brother Andy and Uncle & Aunt at Waterhay Farm near Ashton Keynes. We no longer breed cattle here, instead Waterhay have the breeding cows and we take the youngstock at weaning when they are around 10 months old to graze on our herbal leys and grass. This week was weaning time at Waterhay and after a few trailer trips we received 35 youngsters to join our herd of 88. They will spend the summer grazing and when wintertime comes around they are housed and fed silage which we made two weeks ago.

Silage making happened earlier than ever for us this year, I put this down to the very mild winter we had which has meant the grass growth was good early on in the season. The red clover and ryegrass field (which we have specifically for making silage for the youngstock as it very high in protein) was mown on the 9th May. The grass then sits on the field to partially dry out and then is baled and wrapped in black plastic (this does get recycled!) which then starts the fermenting/preserving process. We will do 3 maybe 4 cuts of silage and some hay throughout the year to feed the cattle and sheep over winter, so we are very pleased to see some rain over the last few days to keep it growing!

Pop up farm shop – Saturday 28th May AND Saturday 11th June 

This month’s shop is on Saturday 28th May 10am - noon. We will have all the usual goodies (more info here) including our fresh 100% pasture fed beef on the chill counter.

We also have a bonus pop up shop on Saturday 11th June 10am - noon where we will have our much sought-after Oxford Down Mutton on the chill counter. Selection boxes are now available to order online to collect on this day.

The next batch of Lamb boxes will be available sometime in July and I will be working my way down my ‘special’ lamb email list when I know the exact date. If you would like to be notified before they go on general sale, please reply to this email. As I only have a small flock, I work my way down my list in order of when I have received an enquiry so please bear with me and also check your junk email.        

Lindsay's Shepherds update

Apologies in advance the next section may be a bit technical and boring!

The ewes and lambs came in this week for the lambs to have the next stage of their performance recording done. I monitor lamb growth rates at several stages throughout their development: birthweight, 8 week weights and scan weight. This session, Stuart from Signet breeding services came and ultrasound scanned the lambs. This involves parting the wool on the back of the animal and putting an ultrasound scanner on the loin and taking some measurements of their back fat and muscle depth and the animal’s weight is also entered. Stuart’s computer already has the lamb’s details including breeding information i.e. sire and dam. The reason for doing this is, as my sheep are pedigree and I sell to other breeders, I want to be selling the best animals I can. The Oxford Down is a terminal sire breed, meaning that the rams are used for crossing work (the ewes being a different breed and usually producing lambs for supermarkets etc.) A commercial farmer would want to be producing lambs that finish quickly and often they require proof of a ram’s ability and this is where performance recording comes in. Once all of the information from the weights and scanning is entered into some fancy software by Signet breeding services it produces a chart for each animal. This chart shows all the desirable traits wanted from a ram like growth, fat depth and muscle depth. These are a numerical figure and are known as EBV’s (Estimated breeding values). This means if a farmer is looking for quicker growth in their lambs they would search for a high EBV for growth rate.

I find this all fascinating and can pour over colour coded spreadsheets for hours! This has enabled me to select my next generation of breeding ewes based on how well they have grown meaning they will inherit some good genetics from their parents.

Our wildlife

The spring wildlife here has been fantastic, we’ve heard a Cuckoo which is only the second time in recent years. Yesterday we had a Spotted Flycatcher re-fuelling, which considering they declined by 89% between 1967 and 2010 makes it a pretty special visitor.

The Swallows are now back in reasonable numbers, the first Swallow back waited in the workshop on his own for several weeks until his mate finally arrived, I was very worried and I’m sure he was too. We have left the doors open on 3 previously locked outbuildings to encourage them to nest, no luck so far but a pair is looking at one new location and the 4 nest sites from last year look like they may again be used. I don’t go poking around near the sites but just try and observe where and how many birds are flying into the buildings.

I’m now up to 100 species on the farm bird list! I was hoping the 100th would be something spectacular and memorable but actually it was more of an admin error, I heard a Willow Warbler in April but hadn’t realised it wasn’t on my farm list. Willow Warblers oddly are declining in the south while doing ok in the north so great to hear this bird that was probably moving through.  

At the beginning of this month we held one of our guided evening bird walks, the weather was perfect and as well as learning to recognise some of the bird calls our visitors were treated to seeing roe deer and our other wildlife. More dates will be added soon please keep an eye on our Facebook page and website.

This month off the farm

Last week Lindsay and I had the opportunity to visit a very unusual farm but first of all we had the chance to join Nick Adams (my naturalist friend) on  an equally unusual bird survey!

We met Nick at 6am at the back gate of Lindsay’s favourite place – the Cotswold Wildlife Park where Nick does an annual survey of the wild breeding birds within the grounds. We were joined by the park owner Reggie who was keen to see what could be found. It was amazing to see the park at this time of day and listen to the native birds joined in song by the birds from far corners of the globe. Particular amusement was caused when Nick heard a Hoopoe, a rare summer visitor to England, but on this occasion the bird was part of the collection – but still great to hear.

The park has a fantastic collection of trees in the grounds which I’ve overlooked in the past and Reggie explained the huge amount of work that goes into keeping them all safe in such a public place but without which the park and gardens would be a much poorer place.

We saw and heard many species, but the most notable bird of the survey was Greenfinch, not because of their rarity but because of the large number of pairs the park was supporting. Greenfinch have declined massively in the last decade or so and may now be just turning the corner, fingers crossed they keep doing well here.

From here we went to see Sam at Macaroni Farm, which is next door, they have teamed up with the estate where the wildlife park is to manage several thousand acres organically. They are using multi species grazing crops known as herbal leys to feed cattle and then the land is rotated into arable crops. This is a natural way of building the fertility in the soils without the need for synthetic fertiliser. When I say cattle, I actually mean 320 fully outdoor cross bred dairy cattle being milked once a day in a mobile outdoor milking parlour. The photos above show them walking on and off after being milked. This is the polar opposite to the way most milk is produced and is one of only 4 dairies doing this on a big scale. It works here because it’s part of a crop rotation and is on free draining soil. If this method was used on the heavy clays of this area, it would be a welfare and soil disaster but it works fantastically on the Cotswolds. As I’ve said before about visiting farms it's amazing to see people doing what most farmers would say is impossible.

Sponsored Egg and spoon race!

On the 7th of May I took part in a charity egg and spoon relay which involved getting an egg and spoon from a farm in Fakenham (Norfolk) all the way to the Stoneleigh show ground near Coventry where a Poultry conference and trade event was taking place. We did this in memory of Patrick Joice, a poultry farmer friend of mine who did a lot of fundraising for YANA (You Are Not Alone) an agricultural charity who help farmers and people in the rural community with mental health problems. The charity had helped him hugely following a terminal cancer diagnosis and he tirelessly raised money for them until he passed away in 2019.

My stretch of the journey was between Wisbech and Peterborough, I jogged my 4 mile leg then walked with a friend for a further 6 miles. The event has raised over £6000 so far and I’m donating all the ticket money from May’s guided farm walk and Nick Adams has very kindly donated his fee. In total this is £300.

Farming may sound idyllic but it can be far from it at times so any charity that supports farmers when things are getting hard deserves supporting. I’ll also have a collection bucket at the next pop-up shop should anyone wish to donate.