Farmer Focus: JG Waterhouse Ltd, North Yorkshire
It’s the calm before the storm for James and Nicola Waterhouse of Fourth Milestone Farm, North Yorkshire, as they wait for their 350 spring block-calving, New Zealand-style grazing herd to start calving in the next week (due to begin calving from the 10th Feb). Covering 500 acres, the half-owned and half-rented land is all in grass, with 310 acres as grazing platform with good infrastructure to enable the milking herd access. The herd is housed over their dry period and will be turned out as soon as they calve.
Milked twice a day in a 30/60 Waikato swing over the milking parlour, the herd is averaging 6702 kg yield, 4.46% Butterfat, and 3.76% Protein, with the milk sold to Arla on a manufacturing contract. Fed only grass and concentrates, good management of the grazing platform is essential, with the grass measured weekly from February until the end of November. Being situated just four miles from York, Fourth Milestone Farm can be dry in the summer months, so any grass surplus to the grazing wedge is made into silage for buffer feeding when needed.
James carries out a factored milk recording five times a year to measure components and check cell counts. Carrying out the sampling themselves, a local CIS milk recorder then collects the samples and arranges for them to be shipped to the CIS laboratory in Telford for analysis. James opts to also test the milk samples for Johne’s at four out of the five recordings. Any cows with yellow or red results are tagged straight away and not bred back to dairy. The final two milk recordings of the lactation are especially important to pinpoint cows with an elevated SCC and are be used to decide on selective dry cow treatments, as well as when making decisions on future breeding.
Cow Alert is used as a tool to monitor cow activity during breeding, which lasts for eight weeks from the first of May. The cows are AI’d for the first four weeks to dairy, including sexed and beef, and then for weeks 5-8 they are AI’d to just beef. Heifers are AI’d to a mix of conventional and sexed dairy semen for seven to ten days, and then dairy bulls are put in with them. Any animals not in calf after this period will be culled to keep the block tight. Everything is dried off just before Christmas, giving six weeks of parlour turn-off.
The youngstock is kept in two groups, calves and heifers. Calves aged about 9 to 10 months are out-wintered on grass and balage. In calf heifers join the dry cows in a bedded yard on hay until the first week in January when they are then fed clamp silage. Only the heifers from AI bulls will be kept on for replacements, with them being served from early May. The heifer calves from the bulls, and those bred but not in calf or not due within the calving block sold being sold privately or at market.
James is the third generation of his family on the farm, as his grandfather bought it in 1946. James and Nicola’s two daughters have an interest in agriculture, with one currently at an agricultural college. The farm employs one full-time member of staff and two part-time. The aim of the system is for simplicity, low costs and to breed economical cows that make money. Of the 350 head, 25 are pure Ayrshires, with the rest being New Zealand/Irish Black and Whites.
Having been a satisfied customer of CIS for twenty years supported by Stacey Creighton as his local CIS Area Manager, James sees milk recording as a vital tool to have in the business to keep an eye on everything; he doesn’t see it as an expense but rather a fundamental measure to use in KPIs.
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