Articles

The little and often approach to fertilising with any nutrient (but particularly N and S as they are so mobile in soil and easily lost to drainage and/or atmosphere) is the most efficient way to devise a fertiliser programme.

Mating ewe hoggets increases productivity by around 10% but may reduce grazing flexibility as you then have another high priority group for feed resources.

If silage is being cut after only 3-6 weeks of a field last being grazed there is a possibility that there could still be faecal contamination of the cut grass.  The risks from this to the stock being fed it are likely to be relatively low, however it is likely to affect the feed quality of the silage.

Having a short mating period means finding somewhere to keep bulls when mating ends.  Keeping them together in a group runs a very high risk of them damaging themselves unless they are given a large enough area so they can easily escape. 

Sometimes it is the simplest of ideas which can be the most effective.

Since the start of Scottish eradication programme and as a result of the widespread use of BVD vaccines it is rare to see ‘outbreaks’ of mucosal disease these days.

All of us will be horrified with the recent headline “13 on farm deaths this year up to just the 5th March”!  While machinery still accounts for the majority of fatalities, 2 of the deaths this year were due to falling bales.  What can we do to avoid this and the terrible, everlasting pain it causes to the families?

Many parts of the country have had an extremely dry spring, Basil Lowman looks at some of the consequences of this.

The feed market for livestock, and in particular for beef, has changed dramatically in the last few years.