Since Monday, the company that has sold us, and is installing the new machinery in the milk parlour has been hard at work. We did not buy all the bells and whistles but we did go relatively high specs. The reason is that at our level all the extra stuff can be added at a later date if we need it. A quarter of your herd has been moved to the new enclosure, as usual, the poor cows took poorly to the move and we saw a 30% decrease in milk production, which is standard. The new shed is far more efficient. All chemical products (such as iodine) are delivered under pressure from a central distribution point, which means there is no more lugging heavy contains of iodine.
Instead of 4 people in the milking shed the work can be done by two (no no one is being fired...). The work is physically slightly less demanding, but still requires a good deal of physical effort, the milking process timing is the same, mike is extracted at one speed only, the cows' speed! but pre and post milking is quicker and the lighting is a lot better, which means that teats are easier to inspect for problems. We have not installed continual sensors for protein and fat content, and the once-a-month test done by an outside firm is sufficient, we do know the production level of each cow.
Right now the firm is calibrating the system so that it works best.
In other farm news, The February numbers are in, and in line with January figures, which is good, but we are no longer seeing the increase we did last year and in January, more of a steady state. This is about our core wholesaler business. The steady state is despite increasing the quality of the produce we send them, which confirms market softness. Not an unexpected outcome from our last conversation with the wholesalers. But this has enabled us to increase produce sales to our subsidiaries, by nearly 30%, not surprising considering that the new high tunnels are slowly beginning to generate production.
As I said previously, we are seeing some softness in our subsidiary business, but only in the time it takes for them to sell out of a new production. There is still pent-up demand for our production, and this matches our objective to capture more of the food processing gains.
On our pig operation, four of our older boars are going to be processed in the next few weeks. These were the foundation pigs that we acquired almost fully mature, and they are extremely aggressive, our pig forewoman wants them gone, they are more trouble than they are worth. Other boars will easily take over their role as herd protectors. All our pigs are chipped to avoid them escaping, although they don't have much reason to escape still, pigs have no natural predators in the UK, so this could potentially be a problem. However, the forest is a natural habitat for pigs, its actually hard to coax them out.
The rebuilding of the daycare building is proceeding. The building is far larger than required, so cleaning has been a bit of a task, and repairs to the roof have been worse, but the unpredictable is now over. A few more weeks, and the place will be ready for inspection. One of the unforeseen benefits is that we will have a certified medical staff at the farm from 6 am until 2 pm six days a week (the daycare works on a six day a week schedule).
On other issues the weather has finally been cooperating, there is still the risk of snow this month, but that risk is now tempered by the very warm days. Spring wheat may be planted by the end of next week, assuming the fields are dry enough. Corn will only be planted in May.
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