NOFENCE
A couple of months ago we decided to take the plunge and invest in Nofence technology. Nofence is the world’s first virtual fence, you can control where your heard grazes anytime and from anywhere. The animals are controlled by GPS-collars and an app. Pretty exciting stuff!
Last year Storm Arwen destroyed a lot of the woodland on the farm and unfortunately a lot of our fences. With the clear up operation taking months and with a new road being built to get forestry machinery in and out the secure area we had to keep cattle in was growing smaller and smaller. We do use temporary fencing which is useful for small sections but for large areas it’s just not strong enough. It was the perfect time to look at other options and Nofence has been the answer. Initially we bought 30 collars for our pedigree Highland herd and since then a further 20 have been purchased for the Belted Galloway herd. We spent a couple of hours fitting all the cattle with their collars and then they are uploaded to the app. You create a boundary on the map, put the cattle into the area and turn it on. Simple as that. It works by training the cattle to respond to an audio warning. As an animal moves towards the pasture boundary the collar plays a tune, if the animal turns away when the audio plays it rewards the animal by turning off. If the animal continues it will play continuously before delivering an electric shock. Nofence has a brilliant website all the detailed information about the product can be found there. One of the key features that we are excited about is that it has the ability to create exclusion zones within a pasture which we can manage the hill grazing much more effectively. Some of the hill ground is nesting ground for Grouse so in the springtime we can keep the cattle out of areas where they tend to raise their young. We are at the very beginning of our Nofence journey and there have been a few teething problems, but we are hopeful that it proves invaluable for our farm. If you have any questions about Nofence or if you would like to see it in action, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
CALVING AND LAMBING COMPLETE FOR 2022! WHOOP WHOOP!
With the Zwartble ewes starting to lamb inside in mid Feburary and the last of the hill ewes lambing at the end of May the lambing season for us, was a long but successful one. This is my first year of working full time on the farm and my first proper lambing season, so lots of lessons learnt and skills to take forward into next year! The main thing that you can’t underestimate with outdoor lambing is the help of a good dog and unfortunately my German Pointer didn’t quite understand the task. However, my father’s young collie ‘Tara’ rose to the challenge and saved the day on many occasions! All the lambs are now marked and away out the hill for a long summer on the heather before they will be gathered back in for shearing.
With sixty new calves on the farm the fields are very busy, we have a mixture of pedigree Highland calves and Belted Galloways along with Shorthorn cross calves and some Beltie cross Highlanders. All of our cattle give birth outside and our aim is to interfere as little as possible, only getting hands on if they need a help to find the milk bar and when they are a few days old to tag them. It turns out I am absolutely hopeless at catching them and my aim is rubbish, so Ken has been doing the majority of the tagging with me being a second pair of hands to organise the tags and do the admin. A lot of our calves will be up for sale after weaning so please keep an eye on this website/ facebook page or get in touch if you are interested.
The Polytunnel
We have a new polytunnel ! Spring is a very busy time for us but its been even busier this year with the building site that has been our yard, as we are now the proud owners of a “McGregor Agri Span Polytunnel”. We are hopeful that this will provide us with more space to halter train our weaned calves and will be the perfect lambing unit for our Zwartbles in the early spring. Its still in the early stages of development as although the main structure is up we are going to do a bit of work to the inside to make it “Highland cow proof !” and we need to get the passage way between the shed and the tunnel fenced along with hanging some gates to make moving livestock around easy and hassle free…well that is the idea anyway! Despite some on going and unexpected draining issues the whole project has gone smoothly and we cant recommend the service from McGregor Agri enough. We have a random selection of cows and young stock that are hanging out by our existing shed at the moment and they have been the first ones to have a wander through the new tunnel and seem to approve!
