It has been a frustrating time at White Smocks. Rain was either actually falling or the ground was so sodden that we could not work on it.
Our last 15 acres of wheat have finally been combined, by a neighbour's machine. These 74-acres house pigs and poultry kept intensively, so we have a regular situation in trying to buy concentrate feeds as cheaply as possible whilst selling our limit
ed acreage to the best advantage.
Eventually the last 15 acres of wheat came in at 17 per cent moisture, just 2 per cent per cent above the safe storage level.
We have a "hot spot" drier used on the heap of corn dumped onto a barn floor which operates steadily until the heat is dry enough to store safely or be sold.
Farmers in the Northallerton area have had a real struggle. The damp, wet, weather has in fact favoured pigs and poultry kept indoors. The 24,000 laying birds peaked recently in at 20,500 eggs a day. Two or three egg collectors spend three-and-a-half to four hours daily packing eggs into plastic trays which are moved into incubators.
These will hatch into broiler chickens. Deep litter in the poultry houses has kept nice and dry. Birds nestle down to lay into it, a practice discouraged by regular patrols to encourage the use of nest boxes. Our son is in his last year at school and is a big help at weekends.
Work in the pig enterprises is very much routine. Growth rates have been favourable affected by a new vaccine, accompanied by reduced mortality.
A regular batch of baconers is dispatched weekly and pig feed prices have been secured until the end of the year. Buying feed in future is a Catch 22 question. I have lots of figures in front of me but do not foresee any rapid change in prices, but I could be wrong.
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