Cochno Farm and Research Centre, University of Glasgow

The first lamb of 2024! Happy days, the only thing is that we were not expecting any lambs for another 5 weeks. A sheep has been somewhere it should not have been, lets hope this is the only one. Nervous few days ahead....

Yesterday was the day the Tups started working, they were turned out under a rare blue sky and immediately headed off the the ewes. Lambing will start in 5 months, all going well, in time for the first year BVMS student holidays. Raddle marker painted the sternum of the tups so we know they are mounting the ewes. This year we are tupping a few of our well grown ewe lambs, they will need more care, and a better eye kept on them at lambing time, but we do have about a 10% improvement in production and a reduction in carbon emissions per kilo of lamb meat produced.

There is a new job vacancy for someone with experience of farm animals please have a look at the link below for more information. Technician – Vacancy 130408

https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/jobs/.

The closing date for the vacancy is 18 October 2023

University of Glasgow - Explore - Jobs at Glasgow Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.

Last week was the week we went through our 340 breeding ewes, to decide who stayed and who was to go. This was maybe a month later than ideal, but we have loads of grass with the warm autumn, so there was less urgency with this task than in other years. The list in the photo shows the value of records as 29 ewes were culled on the basis of past problems, with another 20 being culled due to issues on the day, thin, teeth and udder issues. All remaining ewes got a mineral bolus, giving them cobalt, selenium and copper as our soil and grass is deficient in these micronutrients, as expected with our high rainfall and soil type. See photo of the sheep bolus.

It is that time of year again, the nights are getting long, it is cooler, grass growth is slowing and you will have noticed the rain. Our dairy cows struggle to eat enough quality grass to maintain milk yields, health and fertility, the ground is wet so quickly turns to mud as the cows walk over it. It is time they are housed day and night, so this week they came inside and were happy to be out of the weather.

Next week we welcome our new intake of students into BVMS. It is great to see the School busy with another intake of very talented, dedicated people.
On farm life continues in its cycle, the dairy cows have been in at night for a few weeks, and now it is time to take Vain away from the beef suckler cows. We don't want cows calving too late next spring, as a short calving season makes it easier to get the cows management and nutrition correct.

Our farm manager was dodging rain showers while checking the suckler cows and calves this morning, all are looking well, the calves are doing great, growing at 1.4 kg per day on average

We have PD'ed our beef cows and know how many held pregnancy from the AI 6 weeks ago. We expect that getting 60% of the beef cows pregnant is good. We had over 70% of our cows pregnant which is excellent, Douglas and trainee did a brilliant job, and the farm staff did an excellent job of getting the cows in the right place to hold pregnancy. Now we have to hope all these pregnancies hold and that our bull Vain gets the remaining cows pregnant.

Vain our Hereford Bull is now out with the suckler herd. He has settled in well. We have an opening for a Dairy Herdsperson at Cochno Farm, see photo for details, please share with any interested parties - Thanks Dave.

We synchronised and Ai'ed our Suckler herd this year with a planned follow up with our Hereford Bull Vain. We opened up EMS slots, one taken up by a final year student keen to expand her large animal handling experience. We also used the handling opportunity to bolus the lactating animals with Magnesium boluses and all adults and heifers with a slow release selenium, cobalt and Iodine trace element bolus as Cochno is selenium deficient. Cidrs were inserted on the 19th June and the AI was carried out on the 29th June. Thanks to Douglas and trainee from Genus PLC for a smooth and efficient service. We will see how many held to the Ai in 35 days time.

We had a very successful open day to discuss research collaboration and opportunities at Cochno. Tea, coffee, sunshine and suncream were all provided. The Farm staff did a great job setting up the meeting area, the weather was great as we explored the farm, and being in the west of Scotland as the sun was shining we had to sit outside while group working. Many great ideas for us and delegates to take forward. Thanks to everyone for making a great day!