Tighten your belts, the bad times are coming!

After a very busy year, producing lots of lovely milk for Stilton Cheese production with a good price, above the cost of production, the tables have turned.  As from 1 November we are now only getting 27.5 pence per litre which is way below the cost of production on our farm.  With winter almost upon us, we're going to have to "tighten our belts" and look at cutting costs and don't spend on CapEx!

Our cows are looking wonderful and are still outside grazing in the fields everyday for at least another month!  We are feeding well made silage during the evenings when they are kept inside in the cubicle shed, which this year we've invested in some smart Cozy Cow Mattresses (CapEx #1).
At first they were reluctant to lie on the new mattresses but once we'd added some fresh wheat straw, they began to sniff and nibble the straw and slowly, gained confidence to have a go at lying on the mattresses!  Funny old things, cows?  Don't like change or upset to their routine!

Talking of upsetting the cows routine.  A few weeks ago the electric supply went off just before evening milking.  We phoned our supplier, who promised it would be on by 5pm!!! WHAT!!!  we've got a herd of cows to milk?????  Eventually, the power was restored only to stop half an hour later, so the units fell off the cows udders and we had to sort them out again into groups of those been milked, those half way through milking and those waiting to be milked!  It was very upsetting for our lovely laid back herd.  Not knowing why we want them back through the parlour AGAIN!  We eventually finished evening milking at 8pm and lost milk production by 100 litres the next day due to the disruption.  If only we could get our own generator? but that would mean spending on CapEx!

 

Lovely Summers Day with the herd!