Liley Hall Farm

2006 Farming Year

October

This is a very busy time of year as we take the 8/9 month old calves off their mothers and sell them. We sell the best ones in Skipton Market and the rest privately either by advertising or to local farmers. This year we entered 18 heifer calves (seen below) and 21 steer calves (which we brought inside for a few days beforehand - seen below in sheds) into Skipton Market on the 11th October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a busy but productive day at Skipton. There was a good trade for suckled calves and we are pleased with the prices we got. We are now deciding how to sell the remaining 32 calves (picture below) and think that splitting them into three age groups will be best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tally also discovered a new hobby; chewing mobiles !! This was mine ...

Luckily for him I have managed to put together another phone from borrowed bits and O2 have sent me a new sim for free otherwise Tally would have been on reduced dog food rations in order to pay for it (only joking !!).

December

We have Christmas lights on in the cow shed which the cows are very impressed with!!

Apart from feeding, bedding up and checking cows there isn't much going on. If the weather is good we do dry stone walling then when it's wet I do doing lots and lots of paperwork and Steve has been works in the garage repairing and servicing tractors and machinery..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November

We sold another 20 calves and brought inside the remainder of the cows as the weather worsens.

60 of the cows are inside, some still with calves. We also brought in the 15 replacement heifers from outside - they will spend the winter with the older cows and hopefully learn a little about calf mothering !!

All that is left outside now is 20 cows and the bull who are on dry land and have plenty to eat. We will bring them in later in November.

We have had the vet out to pregnancy test the 60 cows and there were a couple that are not in calf so we will have to sell these as culls.

In October Nicky visited a school as part of Food Fortnight. The Dewsbury Reporter came along. See the article in  Dewsbury Today

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