Wednesday April 16, 2014

Day 67..

Land Based Machinery Operations - morning lectures
As the season moves into spring one of the farming jobs turns to making silage and although it can be hard to think about winter feeding it is crucial to get it right now. Silage is a form of conserved grass (or other crop) that is fed to livestock during the winter months.
The first process in producing silage is mowing - cutting a grass crop at approximately 60cm tall. The mower width will vary according to field sizes but all mowers cut the grass into rows - swath, which can easily be picked up by a forage harvester (a machine that picks up the cut grass). Mowers are drum or disc driven - drum from the top and disc from the bottom.
Forage harvesters have a series of rotating tines that lift the grass from the ground before feeding it into a chopper. The chopper cuts the grass to a predetermined length before blowing the chopped grass into a trailer for transportation to the clamp. In the farm yard the grass is deposited in a heap (the clamp) and pushed up by a handler into a large pile and then driven over to remove as much of the air as possible. Most silage clamps are then covered with black plastic sheets making sure that air and water cannot get into the clamp, either from the top or around the edges. This sheeting is then weighted down usually with old tyres until the silage is ready to be used in winter.
With lots of machinery operations happening around the farm yard we also looked at tractor safety for example prestart checks, and being aware of safety while hitching up an implement, such as making sure the tractor is to the right specification for the intended job, and operating in a field, checking for obstructions before you commence work and making sure the machinery is set up and operating correctly.

Livestock Husbandry - practical afternoon
Today we were in charge of worming and foot bathing the first set of lambs as they are now happily turned out to graze and are growing quickly! The lambs are wormed to help them fight parasite infections - worms build up resistance to particular drenches so it a a good idea to change each year. The three main types of wormer are: Benzimidazoles (white drenches), Levamisoles (clear drenches) and Avermectins/Milbemycins (also known as the macrocyclic lactones, ML, and endectocides). There is also a herbal wormer from Verm-X, suitable for organic farmers. 
We set up the race and formed a 'conveyor' type system of lamb, drench 1, drench 2, foot bath dip, counted (<-I was responsible for this bit, 122!). The foot bath was made up of a water and a formaldehyde based solution which is designed to prevent foot scald in lambs - A non-contagious infection. Foot scald causes lameness, most commonly on the front feet, and lesions are found between the hooves. The tissue between the toes may be red and swollen, or totally white in colour and will cause some discomfort.