Williams & Ridgway, Clovers Farm, Haverfordwest

Moira Ridgway is the fourth generation to have farmed at Clovers Farm, Haverfordwest following in the footsteps of her great grandad who purchased the farm in 1898. The all-year-round calving herd of 70 includes a mix of Montbeliarde, Fleckvieh, Holstein and Viking Red crossbred cattle and uses The Cattle Information Services’ DIY cell count service and Johnes test every quarter.

The 120 acres are farmed organically, in a partnership between Moira, her husband Roger and her parents. Being a closed herd, they breed their own replacements, aiming to calve heifers in at around two years of age. The herd are cubicle housed in winter and graze from mid to end of March until the end of October, depending on ground conditions. They are currently yielding 6,800-7,000 litres from 1.4 tonnes of concentrate. 

The herd is milked twice daily in a 6-abreast parlour and fed grass silage bales and concentrates in the parlour. Being organic, they feed whole milk to all calves. Due to previous cryptosporidium and rotavirus scour problems, they have started vaccinating cows with Rotavec Corona and feed only vaccinated milk to the calves for the first 14 days.

The family follow a stringent reseeding policy on their land, growing forage rape as a break crop, which will be grazed if the weather conditions allow. This is followed by a barley and pea arable silage mixture which is under sown with grass and clover.

CIS services have been utilised for just over a year on a DIY system. “I take the milk samples which are collected by our local CIS milk recorder, Martin. Martin also takes care of all the paperwork and leaves the pots ready for the next test”, says Moria.

Milk samples are processed in the CIS laboratory with the results supplied the next day to help Moria to pinpoint any high cell count cows. Any of them with a cell count of over 250 are kept on record and trends are looked for. This, along with the Johnes results, is used when making breeding decisions.

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