Dairy Farmer articles from August 2006

Dairy Farmer archives from August 2006

Mysteries of the knotter suddenly put me in demand.
August 14, 2006... In between his show attendances, John Trunch has to turn his hand to dock control, master mind the hay baling operation and even find time to pay a rare (very) visit to his local supermarket. There is something about Royal Show week that...

Cowman comment: RPA should stop its partying and sort out unholy mess.
August 14, 2006... Apart from wondering where all the export subsidies have been going, Pat Bird has her own problems with the RPA and the little matter of a bit of seasonal sheep shearing. Read on+. The politics of dairy farming don't get much better and,...

Cowman comment: Why prompt disposal is now best answer to downer cows.
August 14, 2006... Our Scottish correspondent Donald McColm has not only been breaking into a sweat with a bout of hot weather foot trimming but more crucially has had a cow go down in the collecting yard. Foot trimming has occupied much of my time recently...

Interview: Will DFB be able to hold on to Co-op business in future?(Interview)
August 14, 2006... Dairy Farmers of Britain spent what at the time seemed to be a huge sum on acquiring the ACC business, and some are asking whether the costly purchase is proving too indigestible to be justified. David Matthews talks to Andrew Cooksey, DFB's...

Potter's View: EC works towards a soft landing for end of quotas.
August 14, 2006... Despite some hectic stadium hopping on his (foreshortened) continental tour, Ian Potter still found time to quiz Commissioner Fischer Boel for her views on when quotas would finally be dismantled and got a unique insight into how Danish...

FERTILITY: Cystic ovaries will affect fertility.(in cows)
August 14, 2006... In this, the eighth in our Intervet cut-out-and-keep fertility series, vet Steve Borsberry tells us about the adverse effect of cystic ovaries on fertility and what can be done about them. Cystic ovaries may have a low incidence in most...

EU News: UK needs firm plan in place for CAP debates.(Convertible adjustable preferred stocks)
August 14, 2006... When she spoke recently at a conference in her home country of Denmark, farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel effectively put the dairy regime at the centre of the so-called health check of the CAP in 2008 or 2009. The Fischer Boel...

Letter: High rate of clinical ketosis this summer.(Letter to the editor)
August 14, 2006... From: David Whitaker MRCVS, Dairy Herd Health and Productivity Service (DHHPS), University of Edinburgh, Roslin, Midlothian EH25 9RG. It is clear from the metabolic profile blood samplings we are currently receiving that there is an...

Letter: Causes of abortion are many and varied.(Letter to the editor)
August 14, 2006... From: Dr Richard Kemp BVSc MSc PhD MRCVS, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, VLA Surveillance Centre, Leahurst, Chester High Road, Neston, South Wirral CH64 7TE. I am writing with regard to the article `Time to tackle causes of abortion'...

New soft cheese from Wales.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... The new soft cheese from Wales was officially launched at last week's Royal Welsh Agricultural Show. Pont Gar is a soft cheese range and is the latest development in the recent revival of Welsh cheesemaking. These continental style...

Business & Finance: Benchmarking - will it give you essential guide?
August 14, 2006... With rising input costs and no real indication of any substantial lift in farmgate milk prices during the foreseeable future, dairy farmers are searching to see if there are still any costs left they can take out of their systems. Although...

Business & Finance: Benchmarking data.
August 14, 2006... The table below provides pence per litre benchmarks based on the performance achieved by the top 25% of farms recorded by the Promar Farm Business Accounts Service, the largest full costed sample of dairy farms in the UK. The top 25% are...

Business & Finance: Eight essential pointers to help change mindset.
August 14, 2006... What distinguishes a profitable dairy farmer? According to Promar's finance consultant John Warrington there are a number of common factors and the good news is that other dairy farmers can learn from them. Every year when we analyse the...

Diversification: Cumbrian producers turn to making own regional cheeses.
August 14, 2006... Fed up with the low price of milk, three Cumbrian producers thought they had better try to do something about it themselves and have formed their own processing company. Jennifer MacKenzie has the story. The quest for a better milk price...

Diversification: Dairy members.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... The three behind the Cumberland Dairy had previously never met until they started working on the cheese project. Chairman Kevin Beaty milks 250 mostly Jersey-Friesian crosses using a New Zealand type system on 360 acres at Hilltop Farm,...

Workshop tips: How to make your own simple gizmo for fencing repairs.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... Mike Donovan is a respected machinery columnist who will be giving us some useful tips on building or modifying our own farm equipment. Driving mindlessly, my attention was quickly brought into full focus as one, two, three... a dozen cows...

Workshop tips: Wire straining.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... Farmers have made tools to tension barbed wire since its invention in 1867. Go to the ag merchant and he'll want #20 or more for a tensioning tool which comes with its own problems like needing its chains to be straight and the wedge not to be...

Workshop tips: Post pusher.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... Here's something from the Anthony family at Cwm Risca - a half tonne weight (it doubles to go on the 3-pt) that fits on the loader quickly. Using the loader's down-thrust it just pushes fence posts in, and will work on surprisingly tough...

Workshop tips: Emergency Wire Unroller.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... Get a couple of wheel rims around 14ins or more in diameter and two reasonably strong plates which you weld across the centre, having first drilled a hole through each to take a 1in tube. The roll of wire slides onto the bar and the wheel is...

Milk prices: Summer madness as price cuts take hold.
August 14, 2006... Milk price analyst Stephen Bradley comments on the latest milk industry developments. As already weak commodity prices combine with the mid-term review subsidy cuts of last month, the resulting impact is starting to be felt in the cheese...

Milk prices: South Caernarfon cuts 0.65p.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... In the first milk price change since Jan'04, North Welsh producer co- op, South Caernarfon Creameries, Rhydygwystl, Gwynedd, has confirmed it is to cut its milk price by 0.65ppl from Jul'06. Having managed to maintain a stable milk price for...

Milk prices: DFB leads co-op trio.
August 14, 2006... Dairy Farmers of Britain is the first of the three major co-ops to announce a price reduction this summer, reducing its members price by 0.7ppl from Jul'06. The price decrease will be applied as a flat rate market adjustment on all litres...

Milk prices: Price chop at cheesemakers.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... Farmhouse cheesemakers Belton Cheese, Whitchurch, and Parkham Farms, North Devon, are to cut their milk prices by 0.75ppl from Jul'06. Belton last cut its milk price by 0.35ppl in Feb'06 - after the previous cut back in Aug'03 - and with a flat...

Milk prices: United's milk auction on slide.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... The further reduction in the intervention support price for dairy products in Jul'06, combined with the support price cuts over the past two years, made a clear impact on United's milk auction last month, with the average price of 17.74ppl for...

Milk prices: Milk Link figures.
August 14, 2006... APOLOGIES to Milk Link - last month we incorrectly published a seasonal milk price of 15.24ppl that should have read as 16.60ppl. This in turn would have shown a 12 month rolling average of 17.46ppl not 17.35ppl. Copyright: CMP Information...

Milk prices: Watson's 0.7ppl.
August 14, 2006... WATSON'S Dairies, are to cut 0.7ppl from Jul'06. Reducing the base price for a minimum 3.5%b/f from 16.2ppl to 15.5ppl takes our price down to 17.85ppl, allowing for rolling 12 month profile bonus of 0.6ppl. Copyright: CMP Information Ltd....

Milk prices: Defra UK farm gate price down.(Brief article)
August 14, 2006... THE RECENT price cuts are impacting on the Defra farm gate price, with the average price for May'06 (including retrospective bonuses) of 16.83ppl, 0.29ppl down on the May'05 average of 17.12ppl. Last month's reported average of 17.52ppl for...

Good Evans: Why our first born calf will have to think border collie.
August 14, 2006... As the Leyland's power steering succumbs to the wiles of the spanner man, Roger Evans suddenly finds himself luxuriating in scraperman utopia+. To finish where I left off, 10 minutes with a spanner making very minor adjustments and the...