Specialist facilities

Dairy herd

The 330 cow dairy herd comprises approximately 230 Holstein-Friesian cows (within the top 1% of UK herds for £PLI), with the remainder of the cows being crossbred (predominantly 3-breed crossbreds). Cows calve from early September through to mid-April, meaning that there are freshly calved cows available for use in research programmes involving either winter feeding or grazing strategies. Female offspring from the herd are mostly reared for replacements, and for use in calf and heifer research programmes. There are approximately 220 dairy young-stock on the farm, with heifers reared to calve at 24 months of age.

 

Milking facility

The herd is milked through a 50-point fully automated rotary milking parlour.  The parlour is equipped with a concentrate feeding system which allows up to four different concentrate types to be offered at any one time.  All cows are weighted twice daily, following each milking.

 

Individual intake monitoring

The dairy unit is fitted with 58 ‘controlled access feed boxes’, which allow intakes of up to approximately 170 individual cows to be monitored at any one time.  The feed intake recording system is in the process of being updated.  In addition, the young-stock house is fitted with a further 26 ‘controlled access feed boxes’, which can be used to record intakes and behaviour from weaning until heifers calve for the first time.  Thus, the unit has the potential to record intakes of individual cows from birth through to adulthood.  During the calf stage, milk and concentrate feeding can be conducted via an individual pen system, computerised feeders or group feeders.

Concentrate feeding

Dairy cow concentrates can be offered either in-parlour, via out-of-parlour feeding systems, or in the form of a Total Mixed Ration.  Total mixed ration and out-of-parlour feeding solutions are also available within the youngstock accommodation.

Grazing platform

The dairy herd has access to a 51 ha grazing block, which can be set up to accommodate a range of grazing studies.  In addition, a 35 ha block is available for dairy young stock grazing.