History of Agricultural Education in Wiltshire - Lackham Countryside ...

DAIRY HERDS 1959-1976
CHAPTER X
CATTLE AND SHEEP
by F A Stockwell
As early as 1959 there were two dairy herds on the College farms, a Shorthorn
dairy of around 30 cows based on Notton Farm and a Friesian dairy of 45 cows. At
this time, the Notton Dairy was loose housed, bedded on straw and milked through a
small abreast parlour direct to churn. The churns were subsequently cooled on an ice
bank water cooling system using rotary coolers, One man was employed to look after
the 30 cows and this was considered to be a good economic unit at that time.
In 1962/63 in an attempt to improve the performance of the cows at Notton,
pedigree cattle were purchased from several well known Shorthorn breeders:
2
heifers from Mrs Fielding Johnson at £155 the pair.
1 heifer from the Avoncourt Herd at £65
2 heifers from The Calston Herd (Mr Maundrell) at
£130 the pair.
5 heifers from The Cotley Herd (Mr Osbourn) at £325
(5).
1 cow from Mr Turner (North Devon) at £157
These cattle, together with the existing cows, continued to perform well and
maintained a herd average of around 1000 gallons, equal to the performance of the
Friesian cows in the Home Farm dairy at that time.
The Shorthorns proved consistently to be very economical to feed, suffered few
health problems and had a superior milk quality to the Friesian.
From this time onwards, the herd size at Notton slowly increased by way of home
bred stock bred by several bulls from the M.M.B. A.I. stud and by semen purchased
from other well known breeders, e.g. Maundrell and "Horlicks Farms". However, in
spite of using the best bulls available it became increasingly more difficult to
improve or even maintain the performance of the new generations of Shorthorn
heifers entering the herd and herd averages began to decline. By the late 1960's,
the herd size had risen to nearly 50, extra accommodation had been provided in the
lower yard and because of the amount of hand work involved in feeding, cleaning out
and bedding them down, plans were put to the Governors for modernisation at
Notton Farm.
In 1968/69 work began to provide new accommodation for the herd, including selffeed
silage, cow kennels, liquid slurry disposal pit and a bulk milk tank. This used up