Highfield Farm Visit

Thirty six members of the club with partners and guests assembled at Highfields Farm on Wednesday morning, to be greeted by Alan Winstanley and his farm manager John Riley, and invited to a small marquee on the lawn to have tea/coffee and biscuits.
Alan Winstanley then proceeded to tell us about his family s involvement with the farm and how it has grown from a small herd to the 1180 cows that are milked three times a day, today.
We then proceeded to one of the very large sheds that housed just young stock having gone through one lactation.John Riley told us that each of the very large sheds ( of which there are a number) house cows of different lactation periods, together with some fascinating detail regarding how the cows are constantly monitored with cctv cameras and other hi-tech technology to ensure their wellbeing, with any issues being relayed instantly to one of the teams mobile phones.
We then moved on to the calf rearing facility, with different types of pens or hutches for calves of different ages, where there is a computer controlled feeder for the milk powder feed. John explained how there is a constant turnover of older cows leaving the herd and the introduction of new stock, reared from within the existing herd.
A further move took us to the silage clamps of grass and maize, and how the computer controlled mix of each is produced for feeding to the cows.
We finished the tour in the milking parlour, where a rotary turntable is operated by one man milking 1180 cows. Extraordinary!
At the end of the tour our hosts invited us to have more refreshments with them, where they very willingly answered many questions. 
For the non farmers in the group, the whole experience was a complete eye opener,in so far as we learnt how much technology is now crucial to run a successful dairy farm .
Hopefully the farmers or retired farmers in the group also learnt something and at the very least enjoyed the morning.
Our grateful thanks must go to Alan and Harvey Winstanley and John Riley, for being such welcoming hosts and for their very informative talks.

Click on images to enlarge and go to photos section on website, select Highfields Farm visit to view more images of the visit.