While the floods have subsided and the fierce gush of water from the land drains has reduced, the year is in hibernation. There is still no sign of the oats, four weeks after sowing, peering above ground and we are trying to control the crows by monitoring and shooting until green shoots appear. Regardless of ground conditions, the advice I have been given is not to attempt to sow either winter wheat or the oats until after mid-January, assuming there is a suitable spell in the early stages of the new year.

There is only a month before we are into the period that slurry spreading is allowed again, though at this stage, we have plenty of room left in the tanks.

With the move to steers, away from bulls, the place that natural hormones could play in the production of Holstein cross beef is very evident to anyone who used these production aids in the late 1980s.

I will have to see if the 30 month age limit is still a sensible yard stick

However, they are now in the past but looking at some of the cattle I have bought in as 18-month-old steers, I will have to see if the 30 month age limit is still a sensible yard stick. This had its origins in the BSE epidemics of the late 1990s. Its relevance is now thankfully gone but if we are going to produce Holstein-type beef from grass, in an effort to minimise costs, some leeway will be necessary.

On the grass fields, there are paddocks with covers that are too high in midwinter after the rain and comparatively mild winter so far. I am tempted to give them a quick grazing but there will inevitably be ground and sward damage.

Despite us buying in no weanling bulls, we are still vaccinating and worming everything we buy in.

Read more

Home Farm: some steers housed

Tramlines yearly review: a year of two halves