Testimonials

Picton Davies, Asgood Farm

Lloyd milks 120 Holstein Friesians and 50 Jerseys with an annual yield for herd of 8,890 litres with butterfat at 4.6% and protein at3.55%. The milk is supplied to First Milk and Lloyd is paid for milk composition as well as volume.

In July 2012  Lloyd inseminated 15 heifers with sexed semen after dosing with 75 ml of TendaHealth drench and Estrumate.

Lloyd says “Every heifer was bulling within 2-3 days, with all apart from non breeders in calf after 2 services.”

Lloyd now drenches 120 ml of TendaHealth at drying off, calving and at first servicea throughout the herd.

 Lloyd states:

“Cows are cleaner with no routine vet visits—TendaHealth drench has replaced tylan wash out.”

“ Now by 2nd service 80% are in calf, it used to be 3 services, we have therefore gained 3 weeks.”

“ This has led to lower SCC, with all cows being healthier. Cows are firing on all 6 cylinders!”

“I used to use trace element boluses, but I had to get help in to do the job, with TendaHealth it is a one man operation”

This year Lloyd has done a comparison of feeding heifers grass silage and cake versus grass silage and TendaHealth on a monthly basis.

Lloyd says:

 “The group on silage and the drench alone are fitter and growing well.”

 

Sian Jones who works for Five Star Breeders (Cogent) Says:

“ the heifers are easier to inseminate when drenched with TendaHealth due to less internal fat around the cervix.......l expect the heifers to last in the herd longer as they have less fat deposits in the udder and a healthier liver.”

 

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Beef - Coming soon

Coming soon.

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Sheep - Whinfell Park

Whinfell Park is the central unit of the 1700 acre estate farmed by Messrs Jenkinson. Farm enterprises consist of a 150 cow suckler herd of which the majority are pedigree limousins bred under the herd name of Whinfell Park limousins, 1,100 acres is in arable rotation (700 acres of combinable crops and 400 acres of temporary grass) and the main farm enterprise of 2,400 North Country Mule ewes and 800 texel cross ewes.

The sheep enterprise is overseen by Ian Scott the general farm manager and run on a day to day basis by two full time shepherds.

This year saw a particularly busy lambing period with 3,000 of the ewes lambed between the 1st of March and at the 1st of April only 200 ewes remain.

Lambing has been carried out by the 2 full time shepherds and 7 relief staff at the busiest of time.

The ewes have been fed on a complete diet based on grass silage, barley, molasses and soya bean meal. It is found that by feeding the ewes on a complete diet it enables more ewes to be housed in relation to feed trough space and also the ewes are much less stressed and are more contented.

It is aimed that the first lambs are in the market in mid June at 45Kg liveweight and the last are finished in December and January. It is the aim of the unit to maximise growth rate from Cumbria's natural resource, grass and therefore to finish as many lambs as possible with minimum supplementary feed.

Labour is a limiting resource on all sheep farms and therefore any system to reduce handling of sheep is of great consideration at Whinfell Park.

TendHoof™ is a simple system to reduce lameness in sheep that has been used for this reason at Whinfell Park. The TendaHoof™ system consists of a TendaHoof™ Mat, TendaHoof™ Lick and TendaHoof™ Solution so that the sheep disinfect their own hooves in the field. Whinfell Park have used the TendaHoof™ system for the last 2 seasons and since using the system it has proven to reduce antibiotic use, cut labour requirement for feet related issues by half and has also resulted in the sale of an extra 600 lambs prior to Christmas, reducing pressure on winter forage.

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Forage & Seeds - Upper Pendre Farm

Getting the most production from grass is the focus of Welsh dairy farmer Alun Thomas, who is producing an average of 8,500 litres milk from a simple silage and home mix system at Upper Pendre farm in Llangorse.

Alun has a herd of 200 autumn-calving Holstein Friesians and works hard on the management of his herd to ensure they stay healthy and in turn get the most efficiency from forage. Alun's milk is supplied to First Milk and quality is good, with performance in the top bands for butterfats and protein.

Alun's grass silage and wheat basic ration is naturally high in energy and sugar, which has presented him with a challenge - acid loading from the feed lowers pH in the rumen and needs to be balanced to avoid ruminal acidosis.

"We have used yeast in the diet for quite some time to address this," explained Alun, "it's a preventative measure as we know we would have problems with acidosis if we didn't add the yeast to the diet."

Alun is using Actisaf yeast supplement added to TendaHoof™ FX, which is fed to the herd to help manage lameness.

"John has done a good job helping us to get the right supplements into the ration," Alun explains, "and we have seen improvements to lameness and have had a reduction in cases of mastitis."

His milking cows are fed a flat rate of wheat and silage, and then supplemented through the parlour with a compound feed. A mix of home-grown rolled wheat, soya and the TendaHoof™ FX are fed via out of parlour feeders.

Alun has seen an improvement to herd health through better digestion and increased feed intakes.

"The addition of the yeast to the TendaHoof™ FX means good rumen health in our cows and better feed utilisation. The yeast is certainly something we will keep in our ration," concluded Alun. Alun has recently won the Welsh Grassland Society forage competition and is now in the final of the UK competition."

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