Farm of the Week: Sadness for Yorkshire family who put pragmatism over maintaining pedigree herd tradition

There is a sadness that Susan and Gavin’s dream of renewing the pedigree herd, although having turned into reality, could not be maintained, but Gavin is looking forward, not backwards, and he is working harder than ever at creating a future for his young family of wife Rebecca and their four little boys Tobias, Hamish, Seth and Jonas ranging from 6 years old to 15 months.

“I finished college in 2007,” says Gavin. “Mum and dad sat me down and said what did I want to do? I did a lot of milking at Askham Bryan and said I wanted to milk, so they said let’s put a new parlour in. The old parlour was over 30 years old and nothing fancy, no computerisation. We spent decent money and we haven’t looked back since, but we’ve had our moments.

Those moments include when their milk buyer Dairy Farmers of Britain went bust in June 2009, when the milk price plummeted in 2016 and when, shortly after achieving their showing pinnacle in 2017, they had to make the decision on switching from a pedigree herd to a flying herd of whatever they can buy that suits their system today of 200 dairy cows on their 300-acre farm.

Gavin is more a glass half-full man than a glass half-empty and he has embraced change, including working with organisations such as FIPL (Farming in Protected Landscapes) that is working with the Nidderdale AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

“Our milk goes to Charlie Payne,” says Gavin. “We left Dairy Farmers of Britain the week before they went bust. We handed our notice in at a meeting at Skipton, but we still lost a lot of money.

“We stopped showing because of the tough times brought on by the milk price and a couple of bad decisions by myself. I had some heart-breaking moments with a couple of cows. The industry just went hard and we had a choice to make, either to get out or change.

“We were a totally closed pedigree herd. We came off that when our milk price was at 17ppl. We had all our followers on, two years’ worth of followers of calves to in-calf heifers and new calves and as dad says, they were eating into our milk cheque, so we couldn’t afford to keep them on.

“Now we buy whatever’s in the market, largely at Gisburn but also a few privately, at the right price at the right time. We want a cow that’s going to get into calf, that has a good udder on it and is generally in-calf when it comes on to the farm. We’re no longer all about Holsteins. We also have Montbeliardes and Ayrshires.

“It was a bitter pill to swallow on the pedigree side, we were just getting it half right as well, but we’ve moved on. We enjoyed it while it lasted, won my great grandfather’s trophy at Pateley, which was an emotional moment. I will always be grateful for the help and support I received from Andrew Jennings. Our pedigree cows are still in other pedigree breeders’ herds today.

Gavin says their policy is to buy in cows that are already well-proven, and he has a glint in his eye that tells you he’s still as keen on dairy cows as ever when he talks about buying them.

“We have a tendency to buy cows of 2-4 lactations, anything in-calf that’s decent, and with a bit of flesh on it. We will buy 40-50 each year and a few more might have arrived this week that dad doesn’t know about, until now that is.

“We have two Limousin bulls and everything here is natural bulling. Our beef calves generally go to Gisburn Mart at around 8-10 weeks and we’re getting a good little name for them. We’ve also a couple of farmers that come for heifers for their suckler herds to have a bit better milk and another customer takes a batch down to Chesterfield every few months.

“One of the things we’ve lost is that when we had the closed herd we knew every cow from them being calves. We really know nothing about these cows we buy in. They have a number and it’s only when it’s in the parlour that you find out what’s she like, whether she’s going to kick me, but you get to know them and they provide a decent herd average of 8000 litres at 4.5 per cent butterfat. The milk price has been better in recent times, although it’s going down a bit at present.

Gavin’s father, Neil, is fully supportive of his son and has his own feelings on how farming is being manipulated by those who don’t farm.

“Before we do anything on farm now it’s not always a case of do we want to? It’s a case of are we going to actually benefit from this financially? I just think that’s a little bit sad. Gavin’s gone on to this Curlew watch which is a government thing but that’s not the whole reason he’s done it.

“Looking after curlews in the countryside is just one of those things we’ve always done, trying to preserve life and let things live. Everything has its place in the countryside.

Gavin says he now looks at what he wants to do and if there’s a scheme or grant of some kind available he’ll try to tie it in with making sure he receives it, whether it is for a new dribble bar that he has done, putting in a bigger slurry lagoon that should be completed by the end of the year or other projects such as protecting curlew chicks.

“Curlews are a bit on the back foot at present and the FIPL scheme means we can help in providing protection through electric fences and cameras. That’s what FIPL are putting in.

We are cutting grass earlier so that if we can get our cuts in before the nesting bird nests and then afterwards the young chicks are off and gone before the next cut comes.

“We were mowing hay yesterday and found a nest. The cows had been in that field within the last 21 days. We have five chicks on the ground right now.

Gavin takes three cuts of his grass and has his first ever new crop this year. He’s growing maize.

“We’re growing 62 acres. We ran out of silage last year and we had two loads of maize come in. The cows just loved it so I thought why not. It’s on our highest land where it is sandy.