Having had Greenside in the family for 60 years, the Veitch family certainly know what they are doing when it comes to milking their 240 Holstein herd, alongside 230 followers, based in Cumnock,
Ayrshire. It is still very much a family affair with David and Liz in partnership with their son and daughter, Adam and Holly who also work full time at home with additional help from daughter, Louise who works off farm at a vet practice. To increase the herd numbers in 2017, the team purchased East Boreland Farm for its additional 150 acres to run alongside the current neighbouring farm Greenside which is home to 200 acres.
The herd is now at the maximum capacity for the acreage they have, with the milking herd going through a Westfalia 20:20 parlour twice a day to produce on average 9500kg a year per cow, with a daily average
of 33.4kg. Milk is sold through a Muller Co-op aligned contract which first started in 2000. “Although we want to be producing sufficient milk for our country, the quality is foremost for our contract, so we need to ensure we get all indicators right. We are penalised on our milk for anything below 4.0% Butterfat,” said David, with the herd averaging 4.25% Butterfat and 3.3% Protein this last winter. The milking herd are fed through the parlour, and a TMR of grass silage, supergrains and chopped straw which is complemented by a Davidsons bespoke meal formulated by Dairy Tech nutritionist, James Bendle. The cows have autoID feed monitors in the parlour where they are fed to yield. “The diet is a key component in producing milk for any dairy cow. James is very keen in his role and is a great asset to the farm. He is constantly keeping track of the herd to ensure they are receiving the correct nutrients and producing as much milk as they can be, to the highest of quality.
“Davidsons Dairy Tech has added value to the farm as well as being competitive in price in the industry,” said David, with James monitoring CIS milk recording data, parlour data and carrying out regular metabolic
blood profiling with Edinburgh Vet School and their DHHPS service to keep on top of the herd. Cow comfort is another major component to a happy cow, which when housed they are in cubicles on mattresses with a dusting of sawdust and lime to keep the beds dry and bacteria low, in a fully slatted house. The high yielders tend to be housed all year round with low yielders put outside as soon as they can, to take a bit of pressure of the shed throughout the summer. “We have looked at investing into fans for the sheds to keep the air flow strong, however I think for a milk contract it ticks a box if we can say they are grazing for a certain number of days a year. There is more control over them when they are inside as you are constantly walking through them and can visually see any problems. This area is quite heavy, so it is not long in making a mess with all the feet grazing,” said David. The dairy industry is vastly invested into technology, and it is no different for the Veitch family who have heat detecting collars on the herd to help manage fertility, achieving a calving interval of 383 days. Heifers are calving down at 25 months of age, however the team are close to getting that average to two years and under.
Calving takes place all year round for the herd with fortnightly visits from the vets to undertake the PD work, with David a fully qualified AI technician. There are no bulls at Greenside, everything is AI’d to sexed semen or beef straws. “I went down the route of AI’ing myself as it is a lot more flexible in timing, we can see when a cow is bulling and the prime time to AI her, it is also a lot more financially beneficial,” added David, with the dairy cows getting no more than two goes at sexed semen before going to beef straws. The homebred dairy heifers will be retained in the herd with the surplus girls sold to private buyers. On the beef front, all calves go to the calf rearers, Buitelaar, at a minimum of three weeks of age.
“For the dairy heifers we don’t have the acreage to carry much more than the 250 milkers so we cannot retain everything. We need every acre we can get so we simply don’t have the space to rear the beef calves, it is much easier to get a decent value for them at that age,” said David. Making the most of their acreage, the team will undertake three cuts of silage annually of which they are self-sufficient, having purchased two forage wagons in conjunction with his brother, Robert at Strandhead five years ago.
“Silage quality is key in milk production and ideally, we should have it cut and covered within 48 hours. Since having our own silage kit, it is a lot more flexible to achieve and manage the weather window which should be resulting in better quality feed for our herd – we are already seeing it pay off,” said David, who takes 250acres of first cut along with 220 acres and 150 acres of second and third cut respectively.
“We need to make the most out of grass this year due to the price of fertiliser, all costs are soaring, and it is a very difficult time of year for farmers. The price of milk is finally starting to slowly increase and get
closer to where it needs to be which is in the 40p to 50p region. If you told us 10 years ago, we would get 40p for our milk we would have thought you were crazy, but with the soaring costs it still barely leaves a
margin to invest in the future of our farm. “The costs are not going to dramatically decrease so it is something we are going to have to live with. It has already put a lot of farmers out of business with herd dispersals all over the country, which is causing the shortage of milk in the industry.
“The next biggest issue is the staffing, it is so difficult to get someone in the industry to be hard working. They need to be switched on with technology and livestock. Which is where we are very lucky to be such a family orientated unit,” David concluded, who welcomes everyone to Greenside on Thursday 9th of June 2022.
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