by kind invitation of the the Drummond Family
Thursday, 4th July, 2019
Sponsors
The SWSGS is very grateful to the following for their financial assistance in helping to make today such a success
Agriking
ElectroMechAgri
Campbells Animal Feeds
Mole Valley
Watson Seeds
Townend Farm details:
Height: Townend is 200ft above sea level, but land ranges from 50-400ft
Rainfall: 40-45in per year
Soil type: Light loam to heavy loam
Acres Farmed: Owned 1056, Rented 460
Cropping
Silage:
| Cut | acres |
| 1 | 720 |
| 2 | 722 |
| 3 | 400 (approx) |
The silage operation is carried out by the Drummonds, using the following machinery. 2 front & back mowers, rake, Claas 890 self-propelled forager, scatter-out machine, 3 trailers, buck-rake.
Silage analysis 2018 (1st cut)
| Dry matter % | 38.1 |
| Crude Protein % | 17.8 |
| D value % | 71.9 |
| pH | 4.1 |
| Intake g/kg/ML | 113.4 |
| Sugar % | 3.7 |
Cereals
| Crop | Acres | |
| Winter Barley | 50 | All barley dried to 15%, bruised & fed to Bull Beef |
| Spring Barley | 100 |
Dairy Herd
| Cow Numbers 700 | 370 at Townend |
| 330 at Midton |
The cows are all British Friesian.
The BF breed is fundamental to the
business in producing:-
1/ High quality milk from grass-fed rations.
2/ Top quality bulls for the bull-beef unit .
3/ Beef heifers for suckler herds.
4/ Good residual value in cast cows
| Main Calving Period | June-August |
| Average Lactation Yield | 7100 litres |
| Butterfat | 4.3% |
Staff
All family members plus some part-time staff help out at busy times of the year
Details of the newly installed Rotary Parlour
On the 7th Feb 2019 the Drummonds welcomed the commissioning of the new 50-point Boumatic Rotary parlour. This was a bespoke installation for the Drummond family by ElectroMech Agri with Boumatic Milking equipment and smart retention.
This rotary parlour comes with a high level of automation including Touch Screen, Smart Meters and Auto ID as well as in-parlour feeding which is linked to field to yield through the Smart Dairy controller.
The parlour begins with pre-sorting before the cow enters the rotary which enhances cow flow and throughput from the outset and on exit there are 2 single Sort Gates for Vet Pen & Group Sorting.
The parlour is also installed with energy saving devices including the Boumatic Air-Star oiless vacuum pump complete with variable speed drive. The milk pumps continue with energy saving variable speed drives and allows milk to cool more efficiently before entering the Bulk Milk tank with energy saving Copland compressors complete with heat recovery.
Milking time went from 9 hours a day to 3 hours at peak production