Farmer Focus: SR Pottow & Son, Wiltshire
East Farm, located within the Wylye Valley, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, benefits from three brothers working within the business. Rob, Richard, and Nick Pottow; all have their own responsibilities with Rob managing the finances, office and arable. Nick oversees farm maintenance and machinery, and Richard focuses on the overall cow management and nutrition. Rob’s son Jamie returned to the business 2 years ago, with his emphasis on cow health and fertility.
Grandfather, Stanley, started milking Shorthorns at East Farm, Knook, Wiltshire in 1935. In the mid-60s his son, Michael, bought the first two British Friesian animals from local breeders Brohmam; Brohmam Gem 1 and Brohmam Gem 2. Gem 1 didn’t breed, whereas Gem 2 now has over 100 cows tracing back to her. In the mid 80’s Richard and Michael began transitioning to Holsteins. Michael’s focus and passion for breeding high quality cows is carried on by Richard, and now Jamie.
Today, the Pottow family milks 400 Pedigree Holsteins on a premium supermarket contract, who they have been with for the last four years. The family farm 700 acres at their dairy and 500 acres of arable land contract farmed 20 miles away. In 2011 the family completed the build of their new facility, built with the focus of improving cow comfort and welfare. By 2013 they reached an 11,000kg average on twice a day which is when the decision was made to move to three times a day milking. Today the Eastknook herd, milked three times a day in their 30/30 GEA herringbone parlour is achieving an average daily yield of 40 kg/day/cow, at 4.01% Butterfat and 3.57% Protein with an average SCC of under 100. The herd is fed on Grass, Maize, OSR meal, Ground beans, Caustic wheat and Molasses. Being able to grow feed themselves is important to the family, grass, maize, wheat and beans are grown in-house.
In addition to the family, five full-time members of staff, two weekend relief milkers, and seven night-milkers are employed.
The herd split into four, are grouped on days in milk. All animals over 90 days in milk are required to graze for 110 days in a year, for a minimum of four hours a day to adhere to their milk contract.
Milk recording with The Cattle Information Service (CIS) takes place every four weeks, the detailed data on each cow obtained from milk recording is used when making decisions about breeding or culling as well as keeping a close eye on cell counts. They also do regular Johnes testing through CIS working with local Area Manager Karen Reeve.
The heifers are reared under Richard and Jamie's management, heifers are housed on-site until 6 months old where they are then moved to an off-site facility until they return to East Farm for breeding, all breeding heifers are fitted with a heat detection tag once the first heat is observed heifers are then served on their second heat; breeding their own replacements, and selling any surplus heifers when available, they currently have 750 head on the farm. From time to time, a new pedigree will be bought when something catches their eye.
For five years, all heifers were genomically tested and bred using the genomic results. They have now got the herd to the point where genomic scores consistently improve year on year. As a result, they have stopped genomic testing and are now committed to the Worldwide Sires NxGen program, focusing on selecting bulls that improve strength, legs and feet, and udders whilst keeping a level of type within the herd. Richard and Jamie also realised that when they were buying cows, they were looking at the classification score and not the PLI.
By utilising the Holstein Complete package that CIS offers, the herd is classified twice a year. The Complete package offers milk recording, female pedigree registrations and two classification visits a year for a fixed monthly fee. Jamie says, “Classification is great for getting a second opinion and re-calibrating yourself to keep your eye in.” They did stop classifying for a while but started again as they could see the benefit in filling in pedigrees, being able to see the consistency in a back pedigree, as well as when selling young stock. They are pleased to have had two cows score 95-point when classifying in the last three years (Eastknook Bookem Raquel 5 and Eastknook Brewmaster Anderson).
Richard and Jamie both enjoy exhibiting some of the top animals at local shows, as it is good marketing for the herd. They are not breeding to produce extreme show animals but instead aim to breed strong cows that live longer with fewer health problems. The family have also recently celebrated Jamie winning the 2024 President’s Medal Award at the Semex International Dairy Conference in Glasgow in January. Jamie is a member of the South & Wiltshire Holstein Young Breeders (HYB) Club and the award recognises the outstanding contribution he has made to the breed, his Club and the wider HYB community.
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