Tis the season to be jolly, Fallon, Alan, Helen, Lillian; Deck the Hall with boughs of Holly, Lily, Will and Jill, Tilly Button. Celebrate Christmas with The Archers!

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to SmallLegsOrSmallEggs for this thread title way back in November!

dwf thanks so much for that explanation- you truly are our very own agricultural story editor. Glad it is grounded in realistic farming practice.

I'm a bit torn. I like the general storyline with Ruth getting her mojo back and the relationship problems being ironed out, but the whole way that she and David go about running their business seems so haphazard and unprofessional. On the one hand Ruth is supposed to be the dairy expert, yet the suggestion was that she had no idea the business was in real trouble without David pointing it out to her (of course that turned out not to be true, but why would he ever have thought that?).

Shouldn't they have some sort of proper pseudo- corporate structure in place, with regular meetings and voting conventions?

There even appeared to be some suggestion from David that he might redact the figures he was sending her- how could he even have contemplated that?

In the episode David did point out to Ruth that she had been the one to push to go over to Autumn calving. That does ring a bell and, like other posters, I had a vague recollection that this was quite a big upheaval and inspired by practice in New Zealand. What were they doing before they went to Autumn calving? Presumably not the system she wants to move to now?

They also changed cow type once before I think, but that was the beef cattle, right?

I thought they made Jill sound like a total imbecile with her "ooh lovely creamy milk from Jerseys" and fruitcake comments.

dwf= dfw

Dairyfarmer, that is fascinating! Are there many farmers using this method?

Thankyou DFW for all your illuminating posts on here. My knowledge of farming comes from you and TA, and some articles I've been prompted to read as a consequence :)

The episode still rankles. David and Pip knew there was a problem but didn't know how to solve it. Then SuperCowWoman turns up and has the answer with a click of her fingers.
David and Brookfield have been in dairy longer than Ruth - did he really have no ideas? Didn't he talk it over with his mates at the NFU?
Pip has just finished her degree - I thought she was supposed to be chock full of whizzy new ideas. And, when Ruth came out with her plan, didn't Pip immediately say "Oh yes, Matt knows about this". Why didn't she mention it before?

I don't like the way that Ruth is portrayed as the only one with an inkling of what to do about cows. In a small business like this everyone multi-tasks, you can't afford to have one department off on a limb with no-one else knowing how to cover it.

I think the truth is that had TA tonked along in its usual way then it would have happened the way R4 suggests. Instead we had the preposterous suggestion that they might up sticks and move leading to the whole robotic obsession. No one at Brookfield has behaved in a realistic way since the intervention of SOC. I am hoping that last night's episode means he has come to his senses and Brookfield will be back on track. I will try to forget the utter nonsense we have been forced to put up with over recent months if it means we can return to some realism. In reply to Gruach much earlier inquiry I was up in the early hours because after a late night listen again (in some trepidation, fearing an EE type event to mark the 65th episode) I was so delighted to find Brookfield back on track I couldn't get to sleep. Overinfested, moi?

I don't know Lillian. Sometimes when you're inside a problem it's easy to get sort of paralysed by the scale of the problem. Unable to see the wood for the trees. Sometimes someone stepping in from outside can see a lot more clearly than those caught inside and proffer what seems like an obvious solution from a different angle

Sorry that was to R4 not Lillian

Dairyfarmer, that is fascinating! Are there many farmers using this method?

Yes quite a few. The industry is quite polarised, with the grass based block calvers at one end of the spectrum, the intensive all year round calving berrow farm type system at the other end and lots at varying points along the scale in between. On the other hand in New Zealand almost all dairy farms are spring block calving. The difference is that they export the vast majority of their milk and a lot is powdered or turned into butter and other milk products. In the UK the milk companies would prefer that we produced the same amount of milk each month of the year, and to encourage this they pay less for milk produced in the spring and more for milk produced in the autumn. Farmers with what is known as a level profile are incentivised further. As spring producers we take the line that the lower price on spring milk is worth taking because our costs are lower than if we tried to produce milk all year round, and that the incentive they pay for a level profile isn't enough to justify the extra costs of calving all year round. It doesn't make us very popular with the milk companies though!

Interesting dfw so you do exactly what Ruth is suggesting? However it looks like she might be on the wrong track if she thinks that they can just get themselves a better contract, since from what you say contracts for Spring calvers harder to come by?

Well yes, actually, even to the extent that we used to be autumn calving. We have more cows though🐮 ooh I've been wanting to use a cow on here for ages!

It's not that they can't change, there's probably nothing in their current contract to say they can't be seasonal. Ruth was talking about getting a contract which pays more for better quality milk. When we talk about milk quality we are talking about the butterfat and protein content. The type of cow used in these pasture systems produce milk which is higher in bf and protein. This is the part of the milk which goes to make butter, cheese etc. If they can get on a contract which pays better for these components, for example selling to a cheese producer, their milk will be worth much more. I just don't know by ow easy it will be to get a contract like that at the moment. Apparently the amount of milk the UK produced in 2015 excess of the previous year would full lorries stretching from London to Liverpool (or something like that!) Milk quotas were ended in April 2015 and milk production has increased since then. At the moment a cheese producer needing extra milk would go and buy it from the spot market at about 10p per litre rather than sign up Ruth and pay her 24 p per litre.

Saying all that, they aren't going to become spring calving overnight, and by the time they are set up, the milk market may have improved. We aren't expecting much improvement in 2016 though!

What would be the timetable between ceasing Autumn calving and starting Spring calving with different cows? Will there be a period when they have no income generating cows or would they have both on the farm at once? Do they just do a straight, seamless swap over the winter?

Thank you DFW, proper agricultural editor that you are. No flies on the research on this thread!

I'm going to sound stupid here DFW but I hadn't realised milk was a seasonal product, in that - to the extent I had thought about it - I assumed the cows were milked all year round - perhaps calving once a year and then being milked for another year.
How long is an individual cow milked for?
Many Decades ago, was milk only available "in season"?

And 10p per litre sounds shockingly low
I hate to think of a future where all UK farmers pack up production because of being under cut by foreign imports

Leaving aside the changeover period, will spring born calves be fed by their mothers and therefore diminish the availability of milk for selling during the season when milk price is so low? Calves consuming cheap milk appears to be a good thing to me.
How soon after weaning does a cow go back into the production line?

Gruach, I'm not sure. Best case scenario would probably be calve all the autumn cows next Sept and sell them freshly calved to maximise their value as the purchaser has pretty much a full lactaction. Then use the proceeds to buy in spring calving cows and heifers, which will be in their dry period over winter (ie not milking) ready to calve them in Feb. There would be no milk produced from, say November to Feb, slightly longer than normal on a spring calving farm. They will have reduced costs though, not having to feed and house those autumn cows.

Annie, cows like most animals naturally have a calf in spring to meet the flush of grass. In the wild they would have a calf pretty much every spring. Historically, yes I think milk production would reduce over winter, hence the development of cheese and butter to use up surplus during the flush to use when there is less milk around in winter. I guess naturally a cow would have carried on giving a small amount of milk up to her next calving so there would not have been a complete stop. nowadays we dry her off to give her udder time to rest and to allow her to put on some weight before calving.

Thanks.

It does sound rather relentless being a cow.

Annie the 10 p is the price the milk companies are offloading surplus milk at. Hopefully there are very few farmes on as low a price as that, since it is completely unsustainable.

Enoch, the cows will go straight to the milking parlour within a day or so of calving. Their milk may be used to feed calves but they produce far in what their calf would drink. Some farm use powdered milk as this reduces the chance of spreading Johnes disease to the calves. Johnes is a chronic disease causing lower yields

DFW. Thank you for so much interesting information.

Thanks for the explanation, DWF. Why does that system require different cows?

Whoops, sorry, hit post as I caught the boy falling off the table Johnes is similar to, and has been linked with, Crohns disease.

Going back to the cows and calves, there are some herds where calves are reared alongside their mothers as they are milked, but it's not commonplace.

Sorry dipan, x post. Holstein cows have been bred for high yield with little emphasis on other traits bsuch as fertility and longevity. Cross bred cows are typically smaller, less prone to lameness (they have to do more walking, to graze) and more fertile, which is essential for a block calving herd.

Thanks again, DFW, I'd be lost without you!

Hello everyone I hope you all had a Happy Christmas and New year. Late thanks to psuedo for the new thread .

I've finally caught up on't radio and enjoyed it esp. the closing down of Berrow HOOOOOORRRAY !!!

I don't understand why any new business expects huge profits in the first year though. Sure any seasoned business man or woman would know it's nor possible?