Incubation

Calving and Lambing are both in full swing this month and what a difference a few weeks can make. Going from endless rain and wind to bright sunshine and longer days – both calves and lambs are benefitting form rapid turnout onto pasture with only minimum time spent indoors – Long may it continue.

Pedigree breeding for our Lincoln Red herd has been a challenge with such a small pool of genetic diversity to choose from. Combine this with disease restrictions when bringing animals up from England to Scotland and the issue compounds rapidly. So with help from SPARKS and Andy Dell who wrote an algorithm which enabled us to create a 5 family line breeding strategy, based on “Mean Kinship and “Inbreeding Co-efficient” we have managed to use technology to our advantage and benefit the breed as a whole at the same time.

We are delighted to have tasted the first loaves of bread from the new Cormo Bakery which has just begun production at Balcormo Farm in one of the newly renovated units. Matt and Julianna – who were Hobz in Edinburgh, have relocated and made a start to their new venture here at Balcaskie. Over the next few months, we will be developing more space for them and look forward to seeing what can be done with flour at Balcaskie. They are right next door to David Moyes at East Neuk Eggs – so some collaborations will be inevitable and we look forward to tasting more.

Last months, Dan from RSPB brought together a group of farmers in the area to discuss a project which is in its 15^th year now. The Cornbunting project set out to halt the decline in this farmland bird and was the brainchild of Chris Smout. He handed on the baton to Will Creswell and the RSPB and after many years of stewardship by Yvonne Stephan – when she moved back to Germany, Dan Brown took over. The enthusiasm of the farmers involved in this project shows that there is a real appetite to be able to make positive change for biodiversity. There is no financial incentive to do this work, so the payback is purely success of the Cornbunting population and our involvement in that.

Incubation units are under construction at Bowhouse – these are not for chickens – but for new fledgeling businesses who want to trial production at a small scale and low risk entry point. We are delighted to have two new businesses joining in the next month and so more information will follow. In the meantime, the conversion of some shipping containers and installing power, water, drains and Wi-Fi is underway.

Just when we thought we were able to work out what the patterns were – more volatility is heading our way. The conflict in the Middle East will once again demonstrate our vulnerability to input prices from fuel, electricity and steel to interest rates and currency. There are inevitably going to be some turbulent times ahead and predicting the outcome is now more a guessing game than one of science and certainty.