Extending farm facilities

The main objective of the project is to provide the facilities to increase the number of suckler cows from 90 to 130 whilst also improving general farm efficiency.

Investments include:

• Sheep slats, the aim is to reduce straw and labour costs and reduce sheep lameness.
• Slated building and slurry store, this is the main investment that will allow the cows to be increased from 90 to 130 cows. The increased slurry storage is essential to allow better use of nutrients.
• Slat mats to improve cattle comfort and improve daily liveweight gains and reduce lameness.
• Silage stores, investment in silage stores will reduce the cost burden of making 100’s of round bales, there will also be a saving in labour costs associated with making and feeding round bales. There will also be less plastic to recycle.  
• Covered manure store, this will also make it easier to apply FYM at the right time of year and reduce the pollution risk associated with field heaps.
• GPS technology, this will allow more accurate field operations when carrying out tasks such as fertiliser application, silage mowing etc. The aim is to be more accurate in applying nutrients, save diesel costs and reduce soil compaction.
• Feeder wagon, with the move to clamped silage, investment in appropriate machinery to feed out the silage.
• Water tank, this investment will allow the replacing of 881 m³ of mains water with rain water.

• Two electric slurry stirrers will allow the energy generated from existing solar panels to be used efficiently. The stirrers are necessary to enable easy mixing to ensure a consistent product ready for even application