Nocton Super Dairy

[martlin]

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home...press-ahead-with-8000-cow-dairy/35638.article

It looks like it is going to go ahead after all, any thoughts?

 

[Tinkerbee]

The public want cheap food and they will rant and whine and moan if they can't have it.
We are working on limited space and this dairy will certainly be efficient...

I can't say I like the idea, but if welfare is paramount, I think it is something we will be seeing more of.

 

[martlin]

I have mixed feelings about it, one one hand, I really don't like the idea of zero-grazers, on the other hand, the modern Friesian bred for the size of udder with legs struggling to support its weight... maybe they are better off without loads of walking
I can see the economic argument, as much as I hate it, that's the reality.

 

[Louisa245]

I think the public are very much blinded about where and how food comes about, Dairy farming as it is does not make money so something has to change..
Nocton dairies cant afford for it to go wrong as it's on such a large scale if you look at the plans for the set up it is pretty impressive.

 

[Millyard Rejects]

How can welfare be paramount if its natural behaviour-grazing is reduced? and I dont just mean eating grass! i mean the whole thing,moving around, interacting with other animals?

I see small scale farming locally and see the farmers putting in a heck of a lot of work and checking their animals and "knowing" their animals. I cant see how a place of this scale can do that same observation of their animals? unless they are going down the root of some hi tech places that have every animal tagged so it its movements and behaviours are monitored by computer?
And the pro active trimming and worming etc systems that seem to be the rage?

Call me old fashioned( or a bunny hugger!) but i like seeing the cows in the fields eating grass, I dont mind the seasonal wiffy smell coming from the land and I certainly prefer to know the milk I drink and the beef I eat has come from a more natural way of producing them! IMHO

 

[martlin]

In the ideal world (my ideal world that is) we would move away from super dairy cows like the Fresians/Holsteins and go back a step to dual purpose milkers, some traditional native breeds etc... they produce just as much milk over lifetime as a super-fresian, unfortunately, not enough yearly yield...
The thing is, the welfare is compromised whichever way you go about it - the extensively graze cows have miles to walk every day on their feet that are not up to carrying them and the zero-grazers are, well, zero grazing!
A pint of milk would have to cost much more in my ideal world...

 

[Millyard Rejects]

My landlord is a butcher so you can guess what he breeds cattle for!
He has charolais,limisouin? simmentals. And they seem well...feral?
Did work for guy in UK that had friesans but they seemed quieter?

Ive always liked the look of jerseys but I take it they arent the best meat beasts? so i your ideal world what would u suggest for the smallholder that might want to rear their own and milk their own??

 

[martlin]

You are not allowed to milk your own nowadays... you need an automated milking parlour, but that aside...
Jerseys are a milk breed, really, but I do like them, too.
If you could tame dexters, they are pretty good milkers and lovely beef animals. I have British Whites, just about dual purpose... Angus is pretty milky.
Charolais, Limousin, Simmies are feral, because they are beef animals and they are not handled as much as Friesians.
In fact, the rule saying that you can't keep a dairy breed bull in a field with a footpath says a lot about the breeds' character, doesn't it?
The problem is doubled by the fact that, especially Limousans (imported to UK as quiet, easy breeders) have been bred in UK for years for one trait only - the double muscle, with no consideration of wider conformation or temperament, or even the ease of calving... they became feral and bonkers due to the breeding policy.

 

[Millyard Rejects]

You are not allowed to milk your own nowadays... you need an automated milking parlour,how come? what if you only have 2 cows?
Charolais, Limousin, Simmies are feral, because they are beef animals and they are not handled as much as Friesians. the charolais bull and cows live in same field as my ponios! well they did till today all got split up so horses can be fed horse food and the cattle can have the pellets and barley! and the shetland could stop getting into arguments with the calves! but the limi cow in the same field when she calved she jumped out of a crush and over a vw polo! now if only the ponies could jump like that!
In fact, the rule saying that you can't keep a dairy breed bull in a field with a footpath says a lot about the breeds' character, doesn't it?
lordy! and i walk through the fields everyday with the charolais lad! mind i do stick to the edge and i know where the trees are if needed!.

whats the rules on horns on the buggers?

 

[YorksG]

Many many years ago, there was the introduction of the huge pig fatterners, with piglets weaned at approximately 2 weeks (if my memory serves me correctly) and I visited such a place, where the piglets were kept in wire trays . While we were there one got its leg through the wire and screamed the place down. It was a fairly horrific place. I was at that point studying for a rural science degree, so not under too many illusions about where meat came from!
I worry about the intensivisation of meat production and feel very queasy about the intensivisation of milk production.
With regard to temprement, the South Devon bulls (beef) who used to live on the local farm were three of the most polite gents you could hope to meet. They did regulalry go for a walk, having leant on the gate, and were always pleased to see people. They were sadly killed when 'animal rights' protesters set fire to the barn they lived in. They were wrongly targeted when said people were trying to burn the battery sheds for the hens.
Met some rather angry Ayeshires though they had destroyed the bull pen.
The progeny testing centre (York) had bulls of many breeds, who were all treated with a certain amount of cirumspect respect, we were told that the dangerous ones were the quiet ones as they were the ones that people took liberties with

 

[martlin]

You just can't milk them if you have 2, or rather you can, but you can't sell the milk!

There are no rules on horns as such, apart from transport and housing in sheds - you are not supposed to mixed horned and polled then.
I have a simple 'no horns anywhere' rule

I suppose in the real world (not the ideal one of mine), we need to accept that Joe Public wants cheap milk - the only way to sustain the industry and deliver cheap milk is economy of scale... Super dairies are the way forward. Either that or the milk needs to be more expensive.
You average black-and-white gives about 12K litres of milk per cycle (10 months) and it gets milked for 5-6 years. Your average dual purpose cow gives 6-7K litres per cycle and gets milked for 10 years or more. So, over lifetime it comes to the same, BUT your overheads as a farmer mean that you need the 12K litres per cycle or you will not make any money...
Then there is welfare - cows should be in fields and walk for milking 2-3 times a day, but not if the size of their udder and the lack of muscle anywhere else makes it barely possible to walk So in that light, the loafing sand paddocks close to the milking parlour are a good thing. Not that this sort of cow should have been bred in the first place
There is an argument that the welfare in a super dairy is actually higher of standard, because of number of staff and vets on site, cleanness of loafing paddocks etc.

Then there is TB... Lincolnshire is a TB free area, how will importing 8000 cows impact that?

I'm quite uncomfortable with all this, I mean, my world is normally fairly black and white - I rarely have a problem establishing if something is against my principles. This one is a toughy.

 

[EAST KENT]

Horrible concept of how to use/abuse animals for profit.My favourites are Jerseys,as a child we lived beside a farm with a herd of these gentle little cows.I knew every one of them by name..cows had NAMES then..and who their mums were as well.Jersey bulls though..very dangerous little gentlemen.They are the ones led by a handler on each side! I think most of us were very grateful when the MMB helped out with the AI scheme.

 

[KitKat_89]

I fear the super-dairies may be inevitable, and whilst I can see the business sense of it and accept that the welfare standards (if you dont count access to grazing) will be high, I feel inately uncomfortable about it. It is not something I want to see in the UK.

Martlin, I'm afraid you overestimate the capabilities of the modern holstein - The average cow now lasts for less than 3 lactations, so will have been culled by the age of 5-6

I met a farmer recently who has a very nice appraoch to dairying, his main focus was not on the yield per cow, but the costs needed to produce each litre of milk. He was using cross-bred cows on extensive grazing and making a decent (for a dairy farm) profit from yields of only 5-6k litres per lactation. It is a shame more farmers do not or are not able to operate on a similar system.....

 

[martlin]

I met a farmer recently who has a very nice appraoch to dairying, his main focus was not on the yield per cow, but the costs needed to produce each litre of milk. He was using cross-bred cows on extensive grazing and making a decent (for a dairy farm) profit from yields of only 5-6k litres per lactation. It is a shame more farmers do not or are not able to operate on a similar system.....

Unfortunately, this scenario is possible in only very limited circumstances - you need to own the land outright or nearly so, the quality of grazing needs to be very good, you need to be able to rely on family members as workforce.
Then there is the risks: not fulfilling your dairy contract costs money; too much butterfat costs you money (perversely, the more watery the milk, the better the money you make - the friesians supply it already semi-skimmed). Basically, you need an awful lot of milk every month to just cover your fixed costs, so a herd of cross-bred extensive grazers might be possible in Wales, where the land is relatively cheap and available, but try to get one in the Midlands or even worse - in South East

 

[KitKat_89]

Unfortunately, this scenario is possible in only very limited circumstances - you need to own the land outright or nearly so, the quality of grazing needs to be very good, you need to be able to rely on family members as workforce.
Then there is the risks: not fulfilling your dairy contract costs money; too much butterfat costs you money (perversely, the more watery the milk, the better the money you make - the friesians supply it already semi-skimmed). Basically, you need an awful lot of milk every month to just cover your fixed costs, so a herd of cross-bred extensive grazers might be possible in Wales, where the land is relatively cheap and available, but try to get one in the Midlands or even worse - in South East

That was sort of my point.. Im sure that there are a few (2?) more herds who if they got thier land management right could move to this sort of system, but for almost everyone I know its not an option. It is a shame is all, as its a very 'nice' system to have and how, in my 'ideal world' dairy cows would live

ETA: I've never seen a contract where you are penalised for fat %, infact i thought it was the opposite.... is there a differance with the intended use of the milk? (Most of the milk in wales does got to cheese/butter not liquid).

 

[Orangehorse]

Unfortunately the sort of dairy farms that everyone has in their minds are going out of business week by week. There used to be 6 dairy farms within 2-3 miles of here, now there are none.

There are already very large dairy units in the UK, what is novel about Nocton is that is on a green field site so needed to go to planning as a completely new build, most of the others have simply grown up around the original dairy unit.

The welfare standards will be very high, the cows will be well fed and well looked after, for as long as they are producing milk and calves. The large size unit means there will be lots of staff available. It is just the way things are, the unit cost of production is being driven downwards all the tiime and larger and larger units is the way to go with all farming, unless you go the other way and aim for organic production. You could say that organic price is the "correct" price of farm produce, but supermarkets advertise themselves as being the cheapest; it is a cut throat business.

I am really sitting on the fence with this one, I can see boths sides of the story.

 

[Brownmare]

Until people are prepared to pay more for their milk these super dairies will be the best (only?) way for dairy farmers to make a living. I believe some of the supermarkets have pledged not to buy milk from Nocton but surely this means they will simply import milk to meet demand and this cannot be a good thing.

To put across another side to the argument, I have seen small family run dairy farms where the welfare of the cows is severely compromised by poor housing / badly maintained tracks / an ageing farmer who cannot afford to employ help. I'm not saying that this means super dairies are better just that we (as consumers) have forced British dairy farmers to make this choice and we should evaluate our own choices before criticising them.

Martlin - as I understand it the only barrier to selling your own milk is pasteurisation. It is now basically impossible to sell unpasteurised milk no matter whether you milk by hand or machine (and you can get neat little portable milking machines that just make me want to get a house cow )

 

[martlin]

Martlin - as I understand it the only barrier to selling your own milk is pasteurisation. It is now basically impossible to sell unpasteurised milk no matter whether you milk by hand or machine (and you can get neat little portable milking machines that just make me want to get a house cow )

In theory, you are right, but in practice, the only way of selling your milk is to a dairy... no dairy will take hand milked milk, not to mention the quantities you would produce from a few cows. The only other option is own processing plant, which wouldn't be financially viable with just a few cows

 

[firm]

Slightly off topic unless this super dairy persuades us all to buy Organic milk but have you seen the Yeo vallet advert which can be downloaded now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOHAUvbuV4o

 

[tristar]

i would be glad to pay more for milk i don't use much because i think dairy is not good for the health, already cows are subjected to total exploitation and what i consider to be inhumane treatment, to separate a newly calved cow from its calf is emotional cruelty, to go further and deny them their living creature right to walk around and browse and graze to feel the sun on their backs and the mental stimulation of seeing the outdoor world is unacceptable, if they can't walk very well they should breed them so their feet are improved, after all the milk yield has been improved by selective breeding so why no the feet and the ability to move around.
i thought in this day and age is was possible to make life better not worse.

 

[AndySpooner]

I used to be a herdsman in the 1970's when the Holstien was first making an appearance. The British dairy industry seemed to go down hill from there.

I didn't like these cattle even though they gave massive yields. They ate an awful lot of hard feed though.

The calves were worth nothing here unless you exported them for the veal trade. I don't agree with live exports, so not keen on that.

The British Fresian bull calves were worth about £100 then, and you had to sell a lot milk to make that up.

Looking back, nearly everything I was taught and the systems that were encouraged have turned out to be bad for the farmer, bad for the livestock and bad for the industry.

 

[KitKat_89]

Tristar I have to admit to agreeing with you. For all the vegetarians out there, I think they would be better off with a lamb chop than a pint of milk if welfare is thier concern.

To respond to your point, it is the selection for higher yields that has largely led to the rise in lameness and health problems now seen. Over-selection for yield at the expense of all else works against selection for foot comformation and fertility ect, although this is something some in the industry have started to address.

 

[soloequestrian]

I met a farmer recently who has a very nice appraoch to dairying, his main focus was not on the yield per cow, but the costs needed to produce each litre of milk. He was using cross-bred cows on extensive grazing and making a decent (for a dairy farm) profit from yields of only 5-6k litres per lactation. It is a shame more farmers do not or are not able to operate on a similar system.....

Does he produce organic milk? If not, presumably the milk just goes into the system with all the stuff from lower welfare farms and so there is no way a consumer can make the choice to buy milk from this kind of system.
I try to buy organic milk because as far as I know the producers use less 'extreme' cows, but a) I may be wrong about that and b) sometimes it's quite difficult - our local Co-op doesn't stock organic.
Consumer pressure seems to be working well for things like eggs, but it's quite difficult to exert any pressure when it comes to milk.

 

[KitKat_89]

No, the farmer is not organic. I see your point. The only choice consumers have is if to buy british or organic unless they have the option of a doorstep service. I think the industry has gone so far towards intensive farming there is no way back now though. At least until the oil runs out!

Organic will be better welfare in one sense - they are subject to lower stocking densities and I think the cows have to have access to grazing. Many organic producers will still be using the holstein type or holstein cross cow but they will have to pay better attention to breeding for health traits otherwise they would never meet organic standards due to the vet care (drugs) and welfare implications.

 

[hobo]

I've held of commenting so far because I have so much I could say and can only type with one finger. The main points are that is not the size that matters but what you do with it!
Organic farmers are NOT better that standard farmers.
It is all down to the individual farmer, workers ect.
My qualifactions to comment are that we have 110 holstein cows looked after to the highest standards and we wouldn't let the local Organic farmers any were near them.
They give over 10,000lts are fertile can canter around the fields on their good feet and legs with their tidy udders. To do this means we live and breath cows taking great care to their every need, we couldn't do this with more cows but with the right team and the right setup it can be done.

 

[EAST KENT]

I've held of commenting so far because I have so much I could say and can only type with one finger. The main points are that is not the size that matters but what you do with it!
Organic farmers are NOT better that standard farmers.
It is all down to the individual farmer, workers ect.
My qualifactions to comment are that we have 110 holstein cows looked after to the highest standards and we wouldn't let the local Organic farmers any were near them.
They give over 10,000lts are fertile can canter around the fields on their good feet and legs with their tidy udders. To do this means we live and breath cows taking great care to their every need, we couldn't do this with more cows but with the right team and the right setup it can be done.

How many years do your cows last until "burn out"?

 

[DragonSlayer]

Well, I know the locals are up in arms about it, but apparently it has been promised that traffic WON'T go through the village.....

It's not a big village after all, with terrible bends, would do MY swede in having big tankers thundering through at all hours....

Even the halved amount makes one worry.....what the heck will they do with all the slurry? There was talk about using it as fuel for power stations or similar.....but who knows....

 

[soloequestrian]

I've held of commenting so far because I have so much I could say and can only type with one finger. The main points are that is not the size that matters but what you do with it!
Organic farmers are NOT better that standard farmers.
It is all down to the individual farmer, workers ect.
My qualifactions to comment are that we have 110 holstein cows looked after to the highest standards and we wouldn't let the local Organic farmers any were near them.
They give over 10,000lts are fertile can canter around the fields on their good feet and legs with their tidy udders. To do this means we live and breath cows taking great care to their every need, we couldn't do this with more cows but with the right team and the right setup it can be done.

So as consumers, how can we support farms like yours and discriminate against those with poor welfare?

 

[lizzie_liz]

I don't agree with super dairy's and ideally would like my milk to come from cows who have had access to grazing etc.

I was sat in a radio audience the other day to do with Scotlands land use and we were asked if we knew how much it cost to produce a pint of milk. Only about 6 people out of 100 knew the answer, this room was 2/3's full of people in tweed. So maybe we all need educated in how much it costs for milk to be produced. I would be happy to pay more for milk if it meant farmers were paid enough to cover costs and earn a bit on top. For this to happen it would require all supermarkets to get behind this idea.

 

[Millyard Rejects]

Well, I know the locals are up in arms about it, but apparently it has been promised that traffic WON'T go through the village...

As a side thought... what about al the lights that would be on ( thinking that inside sheds they often leave lights and heat lamps on to lengthen the "day")and the machinery noise from the milking machines? how will they effect the locals?