DairyCo

Cheshire & Staffordshire

Adam Clay

Introducing the Extension Team for the Cheshire & Staffordshire

We aim to help farmers by arranging meetings to help develop techniques deliver efficient use of time. We want you to get the best value from your levy.

An important aspect to what we do is help farmers find solutions to technical problems they may encounter. The DairyCo open meetings provide a platform to speak to farmers and help with problems like lameness and mobility in your herd.

What's been happening?

• Calving Day - On 17 February in Siddington around 50 farmers turned out to listen to Kate Burnby from Deva vets practice and Den Leonard from Leonard and May talking about how to calve cows effectively and getting the cow back into action after she had calved for a successful lactation.
• Milking the grant scheme - We had a very well attended open meeting at Tissington on 11 February where we were looking at what grants are available to dairy farmers and how to go about applying.  We had represntatives from a range of government organisations involved in awarding these grants and it was a great opportunity to find out more.  There was a lively question and answer session where many of those present took the opportunity to pick the brains of the experts.
• Crossbreeding meeting - On 26 February, also at Tissington, a number of farmers attended a meeting aimed at helping those interested to make informed decisions about crossbreeding.  DairyCo extension officer Andy Dodd discussed the work DairyCo is doing in this area whilst Steve Brandon, a dairy farmers from Stafford, talked about his practical experiences of crossbreeding.  The whole group took part in a very interesting and useful discussion which we plan to take further at a follow up meeting in early may. If you missed this meeting but are interested in joining us for the next one, please get in touch.

For more information about events and meetings in your area please go to the events page.