Farm Diary October 8 2008

The silage clamp was completed as Glebdales the contractors filled it with maize silage last Friday, and they finished just before the rain arrived on Saturday afternoon.

The bulk of the maize is now in, and the remaining crop will not be ready for another fortnight or so. By the time you read this the work on cow cubicles for this coming winter will be done, with only some minor maintenance to the feed troughs to do. We still need to finish the work on the feed bunkers, and we still have plenty of other work to do, but it will be more relaxed from now on.

We will transport 70 of the bulling heifers from Tillington to their winter quarters this week, and it won't be long before the weaned calves over there will be allowed to run out in the yard. We have had a good run of Holstein heifer calves, and I also have a buyer for the Holstein bull calves which is excellent.

The cold dry weather has certainly been good for the calves, and they are doing well. Now that we are back in warmer wetter weather yet again, I expect there to be more chesty coughs in the calf sheds which there has been plenty of this wet summer and autumn.

After the unfortunate incident where a woman contracted Bovine TB, Defra has revealed the risk to human health from infection. Across the country TB in 'non-bovine species' are as follows; 22 farmed deer, 42 park deer, and 123 wild deer; 39 cats, 30 pigs, 17 llama, 6 sheep, 2 dogs, 2 farmed wild boar, 1 goat and 1 fox have been found infected with the disease.

The incidence of bovine TB spreading to other species is on the increase according to Defra, who released the figures under Freedom of Information Act, requested by the NFU. The NFU is becoming increasingly worried about the risk to people working with livestock, as the disease is allowed to take its course with no action from government, and other powerless due to the badger protection act.