THE weekend at the beginning of the past week was again rather wet , with 21.5 mm falling over the 2 days. Over the remainder of the week we had a further 15 mm, which prevented the carrying out of any land work necessary for the planting of our winter cereals. There is a real autumnal feel to the air as we head towards the end of October, with the leaves on many of the trees beginning to show their autumn colours. To show the colours at their best we need some bright sunny days with cool overnight temperatures . On checking the forecast it does look as if we will have a drier week.

The recently purchased group of weaned Aberdeen Angus X beef calves are now well settled in their new surroundings and Ian has told me that the coughing has reduced. Ian is now slowly introducing the animals to a new diet to prevent any digestive upset. Prior to their arrival on Manor Farm they were being fed a ration of straw and a specially formulated pelleted calf food, so Ian is gradually reducing the amount of concentrate and has replaced some of the straw with very good quality hay. The hay and straw will then be reduced and replaced with grass silage. Beef prices are not great at the moment so we needed to give the calves a ration including more of our good quality home produced grass silage with a top up of concentrate feed as advised by our nutritionist.

I am pleased to be able to tell you that our field of forage maize has been successfully harvested and is now safely stored in our maize silage clamp. We were pleased that the crop had not deteriorated very much, with only the top of the plants looking brown. The lower part of the plants and cobs were still intact, with a good yield obtained. Harvesting maize especially when conditions are not favourable can be quite messy, but everything was done to minimise any negative effects. The machine used to cut and gather the crop was fitted with 3 metre wide wheels, to help avoid compaction of the soil. The trailers used to collect the cut, chopped maize were much smaller so only transporting half the usual weight in each load. We also brought all the maize to the clamp across tracks on the farm, so did not have to use roads. At the beginning of harvest the tractors were bringing some mud into the front of the clamp , which was continuously scraped away , but later on conditions became much drier .

During maize harvest we applied an additive. The additive is made up of a Lactobacillus bacterium inoculant and potassium sorbate, a safe, approved preservative. This additive gives a faster, more efficient fermentation, better aerobic stability and enhanced palatability, so helping to ensure that the maize silage produced will be a good quality feed for our cattle.

Unable to prepare fields for sowing due to the damp weather, Kevin and Ian have been preparing buildings for winter use. One set of barns are being set up ready for the ewes, which will start to come in from mid-December. Another old barn has been made usable by opening up the front and clearing bits and pieces from inside and an old dairy building is being modified to house a handling system for the sheep. Ian has also managed to sell a set of portable cubicles, which were taken out of one of the barns to be used for the ewes.

Kevin has also been finding and unblocking some land drains on Chiverlins Farm. Land drains are clay pipes situated below the working depth of known wet areas of fields. These drainage pipes collect excess water from the fields, feeding it into ditches, then into streams and finally rivers.