Two months have now passed since the last Advisory Group meeting and a lot has been happening on the farms. All lambs have now been marked and ewes have been clipped, the bull has gone back to SRUC s Bush Farm in Edinburgh and the calves are due to be weaned soon. Two fields have also been reseeded (Trials field & Eight Acre). We also held a successful Farm & Industry Open Day on 3d September. Marking On the week beginning 17 th of June all Auchtertyre lambs were marked and we could now see for the first time how well lambing has gone for the Auchtertyre flock. In total 250 lambs were marked from a total of 295 ewes which were scanned in lamb (42 scanned yeld). However there was the odd ewe which hadn t been in for a long time but turned up with lambs which was a bonus. All Auchtertyre ewes and lambs were shepherd sampled (taking a small drop of blood) and these will be sent to New Zealand soon to determine the parentage of the lambs. Kirkton & Lleyn lambs were marked on the week of the 23 rd June and all were looking well. They were all dosed and put back to their fields until milkclip time. All lambs with plochteach were also recorded, see table below on plochteach incidences so far: New signs of plochteach at: Flock Lamb Flock Size Marking Milkclip Weaning Total Known Disappearances Kirkton 540 6 5 2 13 5 Auchtertyre 250 30 19 2 51 16 Lleyn 357 1 0 0 1 0 Milkclip Four weeks after marking the Kirkton & Lleyn lambs were brought back in for milkclip. As part of a comparison of different management systems, all ewes and lambs were weighed pre-clipping. Jenna Kyle & Harriet Wishart went to the Moredun Institute to learn how to do faecal egg counts and can now do these on farm instead of sending them away. Lambs on the conventional management system were all wormed based on their faecal egg counts. Conversely lambs on the new Precision Livestock Farming management system are only wormed if they did not meet their individual target weight gain since marking in June. Only 5 of the 403 lambs on this new system did not reach their target weight, so were wormed. Lambs were back-fat scanned the week of 25 th August and weaned from the ewes.
Cows The cows and calves now have proximity logger collars on, which measure who they interact with in the herd and for how long. They have another week on the rough parks before they can go to the hill and the calves are due to be weaned at the end of September. All 20 cows have been scanned as being in calf. Kirkton Grassland Group This Group consists of farmers from across the region interested in discussing and seeing how well different techniques to improve grassland management and productivity work in practice. They have met twice so far: 3 rd July and 20th August. They are reviewing progress on a number of in-bye grassland trial sites established in 2012 and 2013 and making specific recommendations about the management of these through the remainder of the 2014 season. The group are also discussing the amount of bracken encroaching on some of the sloping grass parks lying between the in-bye grasslands and the West Highland Railway Line. As it was too late to implement any control measures this season there was no immediate decision on a potential remedy. Nevertheless, they will continue to discuss each member's own individual experiences of bracken control (a major concern throughout much of the Highlands) at subsequent meetings, with a view to deciding on an action plan to be implemented and monitored at Kirkton & Auchtertyre early in the 2015 season. Visitors to the Farms Visitors to the farms to discuss potential research, demonstration and/or use for teaching since June have included colleagues from: The John Muir Trust; SRUC s Environment & Countryside lecturers; the University of Hull; Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park; UHI s Centre for Mountain Studies Fergus Younger also visited to discuss SRUC involvement in the Hill Farming conference that he and Lucy Sumsion are seeking to encourage NFUS to hold over the winter. Our postponed Open day was held on 3 rd September. We had over 60 people present and overall feedback was positive on the day. We will discuss some of the suggestions made about potential future research and demonstration areas at the Advisory Group meeting on 12 th September. Oban Times The text of articles since June 2014 are included below
Oban Times June 2014 Lambing is now finished at SRUC Kirkton and Auchtertyre research farms, near Crianlarich and while it is always a busy time, the good weather this year has made it a lot more straightforward. The early grass growth has allowed the ewes to produce plenty of milk and the lambs are now thriving. All the Kirkton Blackface and Lleyn lambs (roughly 900) are recorded at birth. This recording involves tagging and weighing the lambs and recording their dam within 24 hours of the lambs being born. This is nice and easy when the ewes and lambs are in the shed but involves a bit more energy when catching lambs out in the field. This year the Blackface single lambs weighed on average 3.8kg and Lleyn singles slightly more at 4.4kg. It won t be long until all the ewes and lambs are brought in for marking at the end of this month. We will also find out then how many lambs have been born from our Auchtertyre Blackface flock, which is lambed out on the hill. So we are making the most of a few quieter weeks after lambing before the busy part of the summer begins. At the moment we are crutching (shearing off the wool around the tail and rear end) the ewes and treating them with pour-on to keep parasites at bay and are also just about to start shearing, with the rams being first in the queue. Thoughts have also turned to the grassland with re-seeding and weed control. We plan to re-seed about 3 hectares of grass and sow about 1.5 hectares of forage crop this year. Last year we weed wiped an area of land which was densely covered with rushes and achieved 100% kill rate so we have purchased a weed-wiper with the aim of reducing rushes, thistles and other weeds across both farms. We also had some interesting research results on the farms. One of our BSc Applied Animal Science students (Grace Cuthill, from the Black Isle) studied the effect of Plochteach on lamb performance. Plochteach is a photosensitisation disease, which manifests itself in young lambs with lesions to the skin of the face, ears and back. It is known to be linked to the plant Bog Asphodel, which grows on the hills of our farms. Not much is known about this disease or its occurrence in Scotland, but up to 10% of lambs born on hill farms in Western Scotland are believed to be affected. Grace used data collected from our farms last year, which was a bad year for Plochteach. Out of 712 lambs, 39 showed the external signs of the disease. She found that lambs with the disease had lower marking and weaning weights than those without it, with a 2-3 kg difference! The presence of Plochteach was also strongly linked to the pastures on which the lambs and their mothers had been grazing during the summer. It is a topic that the researchers on the farm are keen to investigate in more detail. Finally, I may see some of you at the Highland Show this year! SRUC is having its usual stand, but this time we will be showcasing some of the research kit that we use here on the research farms. It should be an entertaining four days.
Oban Times article July 2014 This past month has been busy, especially with four pretty full days at the Royal Highland Show! This year, SRUC put a particular focus on Smart Farming and we played a key role in helping highlight the new and lighter electronic systems for use on hill farms. Inside the stand we had a practical demonstration of how Electronic Identification (EID) tags can be used to make the management of sheep, and the associated record keeping, much easier, faster and more accurate. We couldn t keep real sheep inside the stand for four days, so our weighing crate was surrounded by cardboard cut-out sheep, each with EID tags in their ears. Visitors to the stand were able to see how easy it was to identify each sheep using an EID reader and store information directly on to the associated ipad. Outside the stand we had another cardboard cut-out sheep on wheels otherwise known as Trolley the Sheep which we were using in a fun way to demonstrate the potential benefits of virtual fencing. This involves putting collars on individual animals which give the animal a buzzer warning if it strays too close to a single cable on the ground. These warnings can be used to help keep livestock in or out of particular areas without the need for expensive permanent fencing. The technology and associated costs is not quite there yet, but has great potential for use in mountainous land that we have here at Kirkton & Auchtertyre. During the Highland Show, we also launched a new video in which I explain how we use EID technology on our research farms and the benefits it can bring in terms of reducing costs, improving record keeping and saving time and labour. You can view it for yourself on the SRUC Hill & Mountain Research Centre website or by searching YouTube using SRUC and electronic as key words. You can also give us a ring on 01838 400210 to get a copy of the DVD version. Any feedback on the video will be welcome (www.sruc.ac.uk/surveysheepeid).we gave away over 150 DVDs, and farmers were keen to stop at the stand, ask questions and test the kit. We even had a visit from school children from Dalmally! What a small world. The fun is now over and it is back to the farms. Lambing is completely over (we fully recorded 531 Blackface and 357 Lleyn lambs in our Kirkton flock), and shearing the hoggs and ewes which do not have lambs has started. Marking will be next. We are gathering the lambs and their mothers from the fields and hills, to notch and tag the lambs ears, and dose them for stomach worms. For the hill lambs, this is our first chance to get a look at them close up. With the extra record keeping, even with new technology, this will take a good few days!
Oban Times article August 2014 The good run of dry weather experienced last week made our shearing plans run smoothly, which is a pleasant change from many previous summers. All ewes have now been clipped and returned to the hill if they have a single lamb, or kept in-bye if they have twins. As part of a comparison of different management systems, all ewes and lambs were weighed pre-clipping. Lambs on the conventional management system were all wormed, whereas those on the new Precision Livestock Farming management system were only wormed if they did not meet their individual target weight gain since marking in June. Only 5 of the 403 lambs on this new system did not reach their target weight, so were wormed. This process of targeted selective treatment for worming will continue until these lambs are finished or go to wintering in the autumn. Comparisons can then be made between the conventional and Precision Livestock Farming systems, in terms of lamb performance and economics. The aim is to find ways to reduce the amount of wormer given in our sheep flocks, to minimise the risk of resistance to these products, without negatively affecting lamb growth and performance. It will be interesting to see how these systems compare in a hill environment. The cattle are also thriving in the sunshine with the cows and calves now split from the bulling heifers. The bull returned home to SRUC s Bush farms in Edinburgh after all his hard work. We hope that his next batch of calves will perform as well as this group, which when weighed this week were averaging 223 kg at around 5 months of age and they have not yet had access to any creep feeding. They will very shortly be moving up onto the hill to take advantage of the weather and the grass growth, utilising the hill along with the sheep. We had the first of this year s Grassland Group meetings at Kirkton and Auchtertyre on 3 rd July, which provided an opportunity for the group of visiting farmers and grassland advisers to review the progress of the two year old Auchtertyre reseed field and the one year old Kirkton reseed field and make any recommendations for their management over the remainder of the season. The group also put forward suggestions for grassland management, and rush and bracken control, elsewhere on the farm. We have been a bit late with our reseeding plans this year but the grass seed is now in, so fingers crossed that the good weather continues. Thursday 24 th July was the hottest day of the year so far, when the temperature at Kirkton reached 27.4 o C, which is only the second time it has reached that temperature in the past 10 years. These last few weeks have been very busy for the birds that nest in our farm buildings. We have a rather noisy family of pied wagtails nesting in a hole above the office door, and a number of pairs of swifts, swallows and house martins nesting in the farm buildings. The fast, low flying aerobatics of the swifts and their shrill screaming calls have been a feature of the farm steading over the summer. A pair of barn owls at Auchtertyre has also been busy raising chicks. My colleague, Dr John Holland, has commented that this year has been a particularly good year for orchids at Kirkton and Auchtertyre with good numbers of Greater Butterfly Orchids, Fragrant Orchids and Heath Spotted Orchids providing colour and interest to the inbye and hill grasslands.
Oban Times article September 2014 August has been a busy month for us at SRUC Kirkton and Auchtertyre farms. The tourists have been enjoying the good weather at the wigwams and we have taken advantage of it to get some work done with our livestock. Our 12 cows and 8 heifers have been ultrasound scanned to check whether or not they are pregnant. The results are excellent, with all of them in calf and due to start calving in February. It s not only the cattle that have been getting scanned. All of our Blackface and Lleyn lambs, based at Kirkton, have also been ultrasound scanned to measure their levels of fat and muscle. The scan image, taken on the back (loin) of each lamb, looks similar to the lamb chops that you would see in the butchers and we use this information to help improve the quality of the lambs that are sent for slaughter. In addition to all the scanning that has been going on, we ve also been trying out some different types of collars on our cattle. With developments in sat-nav technology, we ve been looking in to how we can use GPS information to build a where are the cows this morning? app for busy farmers with cattle on the hills. Most current tracker systems, for cars and people, use mobile phone networks and require frequent re-charging. However up on the hill, where the cattle are, there isn t always a phone signal or an easy way of regularly charging the tracker. Instead, a new approach which links GPS to wireless technology is being tested with a collar on one of the heifers, with the aim of showing via Google Map on a smartphone live information on where she is on the hill. [My wife thinks it would be handy if there was a tracker for me too!!] All our cows and calves have also been fitted with some proximity loggers. These are collars with a small antenna, which allow us to record how the animals interact with each other, logging data when two collars come close together. These loggers will be active over the next 12 months and will provide detailed information about how often individual cows and calves in the herd come into contact. The findings will help us estimate how animal disease might spread through an upland cattle herd, and whether this differs depending on where the animals are on the farm. Finally, when you read this, we will just have had our farm open day where local farmers will have had the opportunity to hear about our latest research on grassland improvement, electronic identification for sheep management, breeding and genetics, and the latest technology kits we are demonstrating and researching. Fingers crossed the weather is kind to us!! We are also in the early planning stages of an open day for the general public that we will be holding on the farm later in the year. So watch this space.