Farm of the Week: Beef farm still has its heart in village despite move...

The first interesting thing about Highfield Grange Farm is that only 22 months ago, its heart was a mile away, in the village of Aislaby, near Pickering.

Farmer David Lumley sold the old homestead, Hall Farm, built a new one in his fields and moved up his wife, Gill, his three teenage children, Hannah, Ben and Katie, his stock and his sheds, without interrupting his production of beef.

The old place dated back to another era, when feed was carried around in buckets and the only vehicles which needed to turn in the steep and cramped entrance yard were not much bigger than the horses they replaced.

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With the proceeds from the sale, a helpful bank, and some unexpected but welcome understanding from Ryedale Council's planning department, Hall Farm became Highfield Grange and David is at the point he can spare a couple of hours for a visit by a party of interested neighbours.

The focus of their interest is a new addition to his collection of buildings – a 200-ft-long cattle house, with ten 20-ft bays down each side, big enough for 350-400 animals, including calves, to winter in, and with a central corridor for feeding and mucking out. He wanted to avoid turning out onto a yard for feeding because that would mean slurry and slurry would have meant complications with the new rules for nitrate-vulnerable zones.

But the big news about the shed is in the top halves of its side walls –traditionally filled with spaced boarding. Here, there are open spaces when the weather is fine and strong plastic blinds when it is not.

The blinds are operated by a simple-looking arrangement of cords and pulleys but the motor which pulls the cords is controlled by a computer, which measures temperature, wind and humidity.

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There are spaces for airflow above and below the curtaining and under the roof ridge, so the air in the shed is constantly moving even when the plastic has been hauled up to keep out rain and cold. Sudden temperature changes, David observes, to general agreement, are the worst thing for pneumonia in housed cattle, next to damp. Thanks to the ridge vents, the warm air in the shed keeps rising and drawing in fresh even when there is no wind at all, he says.

He picked up on the idea at a farm buildings exhibition in Harrogate and commissioned his shed from RE Buildings of Lancaster, which has been importing the German curtaining kits since 2000. They introduced him to a satisfied customer in Lancashire – "with 150 milkers and not a fly in the shed on a warm day" – and he rang some more in Cumbria before becoming the first customer for the Arntjen-brand system on this side of the Pennines. He has since been to Holland to see similar systems, which have been in common use there for 20 years, and satisfied himself that he had made the right decision.

"The curtaining cost about 17,000 more than standard Yorkshire boarding," he tells his guests. "I reckon it is saving me three to five calves a year and that is going to bring the money back quite quickly. And I'm saving on bedding because the atmosphere is so dry. Last year, I must have sold 250 bales of straw more than the year before."

He is coming to the end of a second winter with minimal use of pneumonia vaccine and no mechanical problems with the system. And his animals are thriving and fattening like never before, although he has made a couple of dietary changes which could be involved, including urea instead of soya.

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It is a fine though cool evening, but the curtains are closed for the purposes of demonstration, while he is talking. Fifteen minutes later, the temperature in the shed has risen from 11C to 13C, just from animal heat.

The farm tour is one of a series organised for the North Yorkshire Red Meat Groups by Len Cragg of Northallerton and sponsored by Landskills, regional arm of the training agency Lantra.

Len tells the 20 visiting farmers: "Pig and poultry farmers have used controlled ventilation for years and the dairy farmers got into it when they found they were housing 365 days a year. In beef, we have seen some experimentation with the roundhouse design, where the sides are fully open, but they are entirely unsuitable for very young animals."

The farm has around 500 acres, growing winter wheat for milling; maize, barley and beet for feeding the farm stock and for sale; oilseed rape; and 100 acres of grass. That supports around 80 mixed sucklers and their calves – mainly Charolais crosses, fattened for ABP. David used to use Limousins as a terminal sire but found they produced some wild heifers and anyway, he says, the Charo crosses grow quicker. Alongside them he is fattening 50 black-and-white bulls sold off by dairy farmers who would once have shot them.

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"They give you as much return as the Continental and you get twice as many for your money," he says.

The trend away from extreme Holsteinisation and the squeeze on live calf exports has given the beef farmer ready access to a reasonable black and white for his purposes – more like the old Friesian – and the market has made it worthwhile to take them on, he says.

He is planning to take on another 50 this summer. He has bought the time to expand a bit with his new farm lay-out – roughly 25 per cent more efficient, he guesses.

All the cattle come in from October to late April or May. The sucklers calve inside in two batches – Christmas-February and April-May. Then they and the new calves go out to pasture while the animals for finishing stay inside.

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Once the building work is finished, David, 48, will be back to working the farm himself, with the aid of his own combine harvester and contractors for hedging and silage. The weights for the silage clamp are tailored tyre walls, rather than the traditional full tyres, somebody notices. Worth every penny, says David, at around 30p each for a bulk order.

CW 1/5/10

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