Typically, this used to be a summer disease, with classic signs of high mortality affecting birds at peak lay.

Maximising forage utilisation (or using grass better as it should be referred to) can be an easy win on farm, especially when it comes to grazing.

Weaning calves is a critical stage that sets the foundation for their long-term health and productivity. After investing in feeding over 1kg of milk powder per day to support strong early growth, your focus should shift to maintaining momentum during the post-weaning phase. Proper management of diet, environment, and feeding practices is essential to maximise growth rates.

As summer comes (all three days of it) and goes the farming calendar turns to autumn, and thought turn to reseeding, be it after cereals, grass or maize crops. However, there is a growing consensus that August may be a more strategic time for this task (maybe not for maize but you get my drift).

Flushing ewes, which involves increasing their feed before and during tupping to improve ovulation, has been a common practice for many years. However, with advancements in sheep management, grazing strategies, and modern techniques like sponging, using teaser rams, and selecting fertile tups, flushing may be becoming less necessary.

Egg shell quality is mostly influenced before the egg is laid. The thickness of the shell is directly related to the time the egg spends in the shell gland—generally, the longer it remains in the gland, the thicker the shell will be. This means that eggs laid earlier in the day tend to have thicker shells compared to those laid later.

Supplemental feeding is crucial in late pregnancy to support the ewe’s rising nutritional needs, the rapid growth of lambs, udder development and the production of colostrum.

In beef production, effective monitoring is essential for optimising efficiency and profitability. One of the most insightful metrics for gauging productivity is the kilograms of liveweight produced per day on the farm.

The short answer ( for those of you that know me well, I am not that good at providing short answers!) is yes – A LOT!

Focus: Improving Soil Management

For livestock farmers, soil management is often overlooked in favour of more immediate concerns like animal health and feed supply. There seems to be a misconception that the soil will grow crops regardless how its farmed.

Well, what a strange weather year this is turning out to be?!
Some of you are saying that you have had one of your best grass years and others of you are saying that the rain never seems to have stopped falling from the sky?! One of the main reasons that we all love agriculture is that no two days, seasons or farms are the same. At a time where we are seeing fluctuating markets, challenging harvesting windows, high costs, what can we hope to achieve by 'controlling the controllables'?

A customer is taking part in a trial feeding larvae to one house of birds and comparing the outcomes to the sister flock on the same farm, acting as a control group.

2024 sees Crediton Milling Co Ltd celebrate its 60th anniversary. From our company’s conception in 1964, the foundation for the business was to offer quality rations, higher levels of service and value for money.
All of which remain key elements today.

Protein supplementation represents a significant expense in dairy rations. Unfortunately, dairy cattle struggle to efficiently convert feed nitrogen into milk and metabolizable protein.

Balancing nutrients like nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) is a growing priority for UK dairy farms. With tightening regulations and environmental pressures, the need to efficiently manage these essential nutrients is more critical than ever.

Biosecurity is the foremost line of defence against infectious diseases in commercial poultry, sometimes being the only safeguard, as with Avian Influenza.