THE weather this week started off cold, however as the week has progressed the sun has started to shine and the days are warmer. With the day length improving all the time, we are all beginning to think that maybe spring is on the way.

At the weekend the farmers of Wiltshire gathered with friends for the annual Wiltshire Farmers Ball held at Dauntsey School, West Lavington. 330 of us in total had an enjoyable evening with a lovely dinner followed by dancing to the band Echo. The evening raises money for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance, Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution and Julia’s House, Devizes.

At Manor Farm this week we had our Farm Assurance visit, which went well. The officer made one recommendation which was to install another temperature probe in the bulk milk tank as a means of double checking the reading that is given on the first probe.

Our agronomist came out and made a Blackgrass assessment, and although our cultivations in the autumn had worked quite well, because of the density of the Blackgrass, we will spray the weed with a reduced rate of the herbicide glyphosate. This is the same product that is used to kill weeds on patios and pavements. The European Union are considering banning this herbicide, which could make weed control in the future more difficult and more expensive.

The sprayer has to have an MOT by law, in order to comply with our Farm Assurance standards. This will be carried out by an independent inspector on Friday.

Ian has been milk recording which gives an analysis of the individual components of the milk from each cow. These components are fat, protein, somatic cell count and a verified volume. This enables us to keep a record of the quality and quantity of milk from each cow.

The nutritionist will visit soon to help forecast our milk production. Our milk buyer needs to know this information, as they need to have an accurate prediction of what volume to expect for their factory in the coming months. This will be based on a few cows, calving pattern and culling rate.

At the beginning of the week Kevin’s Manitou caused him a problem when a warning light flashed up. TH Whites came out and found it was the emissions sensor that had gone wrong. It was still able to work but at reduced power and luckily by Wednesday lunch time it was up and running again.

However, the problem reoccurred on Friday afternoon so TH Whites returned and diagnosed the same problem but this time the vehicle had lost all power and was unable to be used.

This was a major problem as it had reached 7pm and the sheep had still not had their evening feed. So Kevin went with the TH Whites engineer, Doug, to their base at Knockdown to pick up another Manitou for the weekend, Kevin finally got in for his tea at 9.30pm. Hopefully the conclusion to this will be in next week’s edition!

Buttercup, one of Annabel and Natasha’s pet ewes, had a set of twin lambs which completes the lambing for this year of their small flock. The Signet recorded flock of ewes have been moved into another shed ready to start lambing next week.

There are now individual pens set up ready for when the ewes have lambed, so each ewe can be put in a pen on her own with her lambs to mother up before the lambs are tagged with an identification number and put out in the field.

During the week 150 ewes from the flock were selected to be blood tested for Maedi Visna, which is a chronic viral disease in sheep. We are a flock that is free of this disease and to make sure we remain free a percentage of the flock are tested every two years.