Well, a short sharp cold snap was just what the doctor ordered, although the mud has now returned…
I can’t quite decide which is the lesser of two evils. Carting water to the livestock while some of the pipes are frozen, or slipping and sliding in the mud after the large thaw.
I was reading an article the other day which was explaining how a passenger jet plane had been converted to transport dairy cattle from the UK and Europe to Saudi Arabia. This is now proving to be a very popular source of income for many dairy farmers. The plane is currently making two or three journeys a week to Saudi.
Saudi currently produces approximately one billion litres of milk per year in the middle of the Arabian desert, not the first place in the world that I would look to find a dairy farm. A farming company owned by The Kingdom of Saudi is the biggest producer of milk, bread and cereals. It imports fodder from all over the world to feed the cows in 40ft containers and these are transported via sea to the Kingdom. Twenty containers of forage left UK shores last week alone.
In 1997 the dairy farm in Saudi had 300 cows in an air-conditioned barn. Today, the company has more than 37,000 cows. Each cow’s average yield is around 41 litres per day.
Despite the extreme heat (although the air conditioning is pretty amazing), the cows milk well. Water mist sprays are also used constantly to keep the cows at the desired temperature. The operation is run with military precision, with a team of more than 700 workers.
The cows are milked four times a day and are fed 90 minutes before each milking. The site looks to be an amazing place. It has all the facilities needed to process and pack the milk on site and then transport it. Saudi has a huge future commitment to the dairy industry. This is far from the truth here in the UK.
The innovation for this empire comes at a huge cost in water. Water is obviously quite a scarce commodity in the desert. It takes 1,800 Iitres of water to produce one litre of milk, more than four times the amount of water needed in the UK. I wonder if they have to spend hours filling in paperwork for the Farm Assurance man or ClimateCheck.
I sat down with Teddy the other night to watch some of the video footage of the Saudis milking and it was fascinating. Definitely worth a watch on YouTube.
Back at home, farm life continues as per normal. The sheds have been dunged out and we feel as up to date as we can be. We now have another ‘trucker’ in the family as Monty passed his HGV test. Hooray.
With Germany discovering the first farm (of the water buffalo variety) to have an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, we are on high alert. Lorries etc are being asked to spray their wheels with disinfectant as a precaution. As per usual I feel that the Government was pretty slow to react. The outbreak had been in the media for more than two weeks before they decided to stop imports from Germany. I am old enough to recall the catastrophic pyres that seemed to burn eternally in 2001. Let us hope and pray that it doesn’t reach our shores.
Until next time, stay safe.
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