Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

How is everyone coping with this awful weather, after a very wet summer we now have most of our fields turned into lakes and its still raining. One the plus side most of my cattle are tucked up dry inside and at least we have a dry house, not like some other very unfortunate people. With the price of straw going through the roof I think its going to be an expensive and long winter.

We enjoy a high rainfall at the best of times, but the last two years have been much worse than usual. Rainfall here has quite a lot of local variation, the recorded figure for Rothesay for 2011 was something like 77 inches, but I think they keep the gauge inside. Mainland Argyll not 15 miles away as the crow flies recorded figures varying from 132 to 143 inches, and I think some of Bute would be nearer those figures than the Rothesay total. For 2012 it is not just the overal rainfall that has been the trouble, there have been very few dry days at all and many of those we have had have had extremely high humidity, so there has been no drying out at any stage.

Our cattle outwinter except for the bulls and when we spean (wean) the calves they come in for about a month/six weeks at 11 months old just to get them away from the cows and get them used to handling. But this year I may have to take one or two cows in as they have lost a bit of condition. We do not use fertiliser and do not feed other than grazing and silage. Currently the cows and calves are on 13 acres sloping ground which has not been used since May so they have plenty to eat there. In December they will go to another sloping field of maybe 18 acres which has not been grazed since they left it in March so they will have a bite to eat there before we start to feed silage, hopefully it will be Chrismas before we need to feed much. The in calf heifers and steers may need to go in with the cows and calves to use up some of the roughage, because we may be short of silage if I start feeding them too soon. The ground where the cows and calves spent the summer is really wet now and some bits of it I could not walk through. Pontius nearly got stuck before I got him out of there and into the shed at Burnside.

I do hope everyone in the areas with real floods is managing ok, with no harm to cattle. I have spoken to some who have had both fields and sheds flooded.

Duncan

With overnight rain our Soar valley is on red alert, cattle are safe, apart from 2 young bulls that swam the river at the weekend when it was normal height,they could be at risk but nothing i can do. Those that have visited my farm will know how close to the river i am, the house should be ok but in the end probably only by a few feet, tonight will be the test when the river will be at max. Interesting times,that would just make my year complete!!!!

Even though we're on a hill it is still a huge problem. We're on clay and I can only get around the farm on foot. Occasionally we have to use a mule or quad to carry things but it makes a right mess. All cattle have been in for some time, I brought them in during the summer!!!

We also had our first case of staggers, lost one cow and nearly another because the vet said the grass, which was plentiful, was just full of water. All sheep are still out but I'm now preparing another barn to bring a load in. Ewes seem to be coping well but the lambs I've kept back are going lame presumably because of the constant walking round in water.

The only thing that has worked quite well is a field of red clover and rye grass which I grew for forage. I couldn't cut it because of the wet and eventually gave up and let 250 ewe-lambs onto it. The ewe-lambs eaten well and grown, and they've also treaded down the long grass. Nothing in that field is lame and you can drive across it. It's like being on a mat. Might even do that deliberately in the future if the weather looks similar.

This time last year we were grazing in the Ings until January - this year the water evicted us in September and we had to house in October. The new cattle building was completed today so the cows & calves have had to go into their rented shed and will return home when the other building is cleaned out and the steers and Jerseys can go back in there (we've been grazing steers but it has been too wet on our land and they could have done with coming in two weeks ago, but we had to conserve forage & straw). We've been struggling to finish sheep off grass but I was surprised to get a group away last week that only a month ago looked terrible, and they killed out well with some nice meat.

The local bridges have been cut off but most of the houses are built on higher ground. I decided to brave the floodwater today with the car as I didn't have time to go the long way round. Got through OK but I wouldn't advise it. We won't forget this year - it's been higher before but never for so long.

Broomcroft wrote: The only thing that has worked quite well is a field of red clover and rye grass which I grew for forage. I couldn't cut it because of the wet and eventually gave up and let 250 ewe-lambs onto it. The ewe-lambs eaten well and grown, and they've also treaded down the long grass. Nothing in that field is lame and you can drive across it. It's like being on a mat. Might even do that deliberately in the future if the weather looks similar.

That's how we manage all of our grazing, along with rotating daily to ensure maximum utilisation and trampling & to avoid nutrient transfer. We move less frequently in the Ings & outlying land, partly due to English Nature but also the practicalities of getting round all the stock every day as well as running the retail side of the business and short days.