Darcy Sheriff, Farm and Estate Student

Balcaskie, I don’t quite know where to start, it’s hard to try and, A, remember the whole year, as it has gone faster than any year of my life and B, write it in a way that is interesting and not 1 million words- but I will try my best…

As part of my four-year course at Harper Adams University, I have chosen to spend my third year on placement here at Balcaskie estate. The opportunities and experiences I have been exposed to have been great and ones that I would have been lucky to have experienced elsewhere due to the sheer scale and variation of what the estate has to offer.

After a brief farm tour in November of the previous year I knew this was the place for me, with cattle and sheep being my focus of the year’s placement, with other enterprises consisting of arable- pigs and most recently, however externally, chickens. I’ve always enjoyed working with cattle and sheep, but to work with such high numbers has been a valuable experience.

Mob grazing the cattle is one of the main focuses here at Balcaskie where-by a field will be split into smaller fields with a semi-permanent fence, and then day reels create the paddocks. A mobile water trough moves with the mobs, and they eat their way around the field until they have finished and then allowed to rest for a minimum of 21 days.

I think the best time of year on any livestock farm is lambing and calving. The stock numbers are much greater than I have experienced elsewhere and have taken valuable lessons from this. The importance of getting the lambs up, suckled and out the shed is paramount, and although the weather played ball, most of the time, it is essential to keep the shed empty so that in times where the weather does turn, we have the availability to bring them in.

Calving was much the same however the Lincoln Reds calves were remarkable, with them being some of the more vigorous I’ve come across. With previous stories about the calving difficulty, I was a little apprehensive heading into it all, but with only one C section compared to the 15 the year before, I would call that a success. with 380 (ish) cows calved and as many calves caught, wrestled, tagged, neutered and mothers avoided and not many lost, calving has been great!

With some tricky times pre, during, and post calving and lambing I would like to say a big thank you to Cammy (cattleman) and Ewan (Shepheard) for staying patient and allowing time for learning, although I come from  farming background and had a good idea of what I was doing, I have still learnt a lot from both of you, and despite there being tougher days we always had time for a laugh so from me- thank you both.

Not to try and make you anymore jealous of my awesome year I will finish off by saying thank you. Thank you to Mr and Mrs Anstruther for the wonderful estate you have created and thank you to all the people on the estate for making it what it is. Office staff, butchers, Bowhouse crew, gardeners, Eden Vets.

To the morning meeting team, a bit of a bigger thank you, you have made my year what it is Sam, Dave, Andy, Jim, Poul, Will, Cammy and Ewan, such a great team and such a great year. Goodluck in the future I’m sure I’ll be back up soon.