Friday, July 30, 2010

Essex

Yesterday I visited a farm in Essex. Stuart and Neil Pulford run a successful cattle and cropping enterprise. After selling their dairy herd four years ago they now finish around 300 calves per year on maize and pasture silage and crimped wheat. All feeds are home grown. They have 160 cows and buy in the remaining calves, usually at 12 weeks old. Their herd includes 30 pedigree Simmentals and the balance are Hereford Simmental cross. They spring calve outside and the cattle are finished around 24mths at 3ookg+ DW. Each week 4-6 bodies are sold locally. Unfortunately they only had three calves left and wined down the cattle job during harvest. In the future they plan to be finishing 12months of the year and possibly go down the path of their own branded product or maybe a farm shop.
These are some of the pedigree Simmentals. Having just taken on the stud, they need to do some fine tuning and tighten up the calving pattern.
These are two young surplus bulls that are going to be sold. The one on the left had quite a good shape about him.

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