Farmer Focus: K & I Millar & Sons, Trailflat
Located near Lockerbie in Lochmaden are the winners of the 2016 AgriScot Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year. CIS customers Keith and Irene Millar and their sons Donald and David received their award in recognition of their outstanding calving index, cleanliness and comfort of their herd along with general health and footcare of animals.
The family run farm at Trailflat pays a huge attention to detail and control of costs across all aspects of the business. The farm has an outstanding calving index of 374 days for their 230 pedigree Holsteins, great average yields with high butterfat and protein percentages and a high % in their fifth and later lactations, in addition to a very low somatic cell count of 86.
Over the last few years, a number changes and improvements have been made, the main one being housing the cows all year round and doubling the herd size. A new shed provides 200 spacious cubicles with wide passageways and a central feed passage. Ventilation is controlled using the building weather station that automatically adjusts curtains to ensure the correct ventilation is operating at all times.
The herd, which includes 10 pedigree Jerseys, is run on a high input system with quality forage playing a vital role in performance. The full housed herd are fed on a TMR and milked twice a day on a 12-hour interval. Milk yields have almost increased by 4000 litres per cow and the herd has a good percentage of EX’s and VG’s. Son Donald believes the consistency in the herd’s nutrition and environment has been the driver behind the significant improvement in production and fertility.
All replacements for the herd are home reared, and the family currently have 200 youngstock. They believe that are not doing anything different to any other farmers in terms of calf rearing but really focus on the detail and doing everything very well. They are currently calving heifers at 22.5 months, which in turn is 82% of the milking herd.
The farm has 150 acres of grass for five cuts of silage, and grow 30 acres of winter barley for Wholecrop. In addition, they have 60 acres of permanent pasture for summer grazing for dry cows and youngstock.
Donald and his brother David are the 3rd generation on the farm following in the footsteps of their father whose family came to Trailflat in 1959. They have been using CIS for a number of years working closely with Regional Manager Janette Mathie. They use the milk recording service for information on yield, milk quality, SCC accessing data via the online portal Your Herd and when out in the yard via the App Mobile Herd. Recently they have been introduced quarterly Johnes testing using the milk samples provided to the CIS laboratory as part of their routine milk recording.
Future plans for the family will see the expansion of cow numbers and a new milking parlour. Despite the volatility of milk price they are in the industry to supply milk for future generations.