Craigie, Kilmarnock Ayrshire, KA1 5NL
on the 4th July 2019
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
The SWSGS is very grateful for the financial support of the following sponsors for the day.
Agri-King
ElectroMechAgri
Campbells Animal Feeds
Mole Valley Farmers
Watson Seeds
Acres Farmed:
| Owned | 1056 |
| Rented | 460 |
Cropping:
Silage:
| Cut | Acres | Approx date of cutting |
| 1 | 720 | 12 May 2019 |
| 2 | 722 | |
| 3 | 400 approx. |
Own machinery consists of: 2 front & back mowers, rake, Claas 890 self-propelled forager, scatter-out machine, 3 trailers, buck-rake
Cereals
| Cut | Acres | Comments |
| Wholecrop | 0 | |
| Winter Barley | 50 | All barley dried to 15%, bruised and fed to bull-beef |
| Winter Wheat | 0 | |
| Spring Barley | 100 | “ |
Dairy Herd:
| Numbers | Comments | |
| Cow Numbers | 700 | 370 at Townend and 330 at Midton |
| Breed | British Friesian | The BF breed is fundamental to the business in producing high quality milk from grass-fed rationstop quality bulls for the bull-beef unit beef heifers for suckler herds good residual value in cast cows |
| Main Calving Period | June-Aug | |
| Butter Fat | 4.3% | |
| Protein | 3.43% |
Other Stock:
| Numbers | Comments | |
| Replacements | Currently running 40% with dairy bulls and 60% with Simmental and Limousin bulls |
Staffing on the Farm
All family members plus some part-time staff help out at busy times of the year
50 Stall Indy360 EX 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.