A typical October day for Philip Norton here at Church Farm...
7.00am – arrive at the farm and feed the heifers and in-calf (dry) cows with a few pails of nuts, then fork silage into their mangers. Every three to four days we top up the straw racks in the heifer pens by dropping in a fresh 4’x4’ bale of good quality barley straw using the forklift. The heifers and dry cows have comparatively small rations of nuts and silage compared with the milking cows, so the straw is there for them to fill up on.7.30am – start up the tractor on the feeder wagon to warm the engine up. I take the black plastic wrappers and bale net off a bale of silage and a bale of lucerne and drop them into the wagon with the forklift. The wrapping keeps the bale airtight to allow the grass to ferment and the net holds the bale together. Both wrap and net are stored for recycling later. I now put the bucket on the forklift to collect the various other ingredients – brewers grains, concentrates, maize silage and minerals. The feeder wagon is like a giant food mixer, with spiral blades on a central spindle to chop and mix together the rationed amounts of silage and concentrates. Mixing the feed makes it easier for the cows to digest and stops them picking out their favourite bits, ensuring they get a balanced diet and stay in top condition.
8.30am – The feeder wagon contents have had time to mix up sufficiently. I drive the tractor and feeder wagon to the cow yard and lower the elevator on the machine towards the manger that runs the length of the yard. Driving the tractor slowly forward, the power shaft on the back of the tractor drives the mechanisms on the wagon to transfer the feed into the manger.
9.00am – “Breakfast” – time for a coffee, sandwich and a chat about the days’ work ahead, and occasionally the weather!
9.30am – I check my tractor before hitching it up to the plough. I know that some of the “wearing” parts on the plough (e.g. the shares and points) need replacing or reversing so as not to damage the body of the plough, so I decide to do this while the overnight rain settles in.
12pm – an early lunch and check on the weather forecast. Three dry days are forecast, which is great news as we like to drill our barley into freshly ploughed soil that has dried a bit after ploughing and has a chance to dry again after drilling. These could be ideal conditions, so I have to make the most of the weather.
12.30pm – I speak to my neighbour Ian, who does our drilling for us, to confirm that he’ll start drilling in the morning. The drill is 3m wide, compared to my plough at 1.6m, so drilling tomorrow means the soil can dry and he will be able to catch me up. 12.45pm – lunch over, I head out to Top Piece, a 22 acre field where sugar beet have just been harvested and sent to Cantley for processing. The soil is quite tight from the weight of the sugar beet harvester, so I select a low gear to use the power of the tractor a little slower, and cover 1.5 acres per hour (in comparison, I can cover closer to 2 acres per hour when ploughing stubble).
7pm – 9 acres completed, I return home for dinner with a great sense of satisfaction (possibly only understood by other ploughmen!).
