Nuffield #2: East Anglia

With international travel still ruled out for the foreseeable future (I’m starting to wonder if I’ll visit an airport while I still have - most of- my own teeth) I decided to make a start on my research with a UK trip, taking the long drive to East Anglia.

My trip started with the unexpected luxury of an early evening in an Airbnb in Newmarket, with nothing to do other than watch rubbish on the built in Netflix television. My choice was a weird dramatisation/talking heads documentary about the last tsar of Russia and his family (my very niche historical interest).

A walk to Waitrose the following morning (to buy gluten free soy sauce for my hosts’ for the rest of the trip) gave me the first experience of Newmarket as a town- horses everywhere, crossing the road, hacking down the pavement, and exercising on the gallops. Stable lads smoked cigarettes, checked their phones, and shouted out hellos, and the traffic waited at special stop signs to let them cross.

The reason I was in Newmarket was because my first Nuffield visit had been designed to really set the standard for the rest of my scholarship. I visited Godolphin Lifetime Care to speak to them about their rehoming scheme for retired racehorses, and about international thoroughbred aftercare.

Racehorses in Newmarket

Many people don’t realise that Sheikh Mohammed is a leading figure in thoroughbred aftercare. Not only is Godolphin’s programme an industry leader, but he also made one of the donations that financially started Retraining of Racehorses, the organisation which spearheads the showcase and recognition of former racehorses in the UK.

GLC itself is a fantastic operation which matches geldings coming out of Godolphin’s racing operation with new homes, and works across the company’s international bases. But, as part of their work they also contribute to shaping aftercare across established and developing racing nations.

I learnt so much from speaking to Godolphin, and it gave me a certainty that my idea to look at lessons that can be learnt from racing is actually sound, rather than just being an excuse to spend more time with thoroughbreds. I love speaking to people who care about the second careers of racehorses - and are putting in place frameworks to safeguard horses, raise their profile, and educate people in and out of the industry.

I left with the belief that there are many shared challenges in racing and animal agriculture, and that the two industries can definitely learn from each other. Interestingly, Godolphin’s charitable arm also do a lot of work educating the communities who surround the racing hubs, and invest heavily in outreach work. There was a discussion about labour in the racing industry, and a lack of understanding of the career paths within racing (e.g. not everyone who works in racing is a jockey), which felt very similar to the challenges in farming.

I own an ex-racehorse for aesthetic, athletic, and medical reasons (I have quite a bad allergy to horses, and so a breed with little hair is the best option), but a huge part of it is that I strongly believe that it is the right and ethical choice. I am looking forward hugely to learning more about international aftercare programmes, and to (I hope) bring together ideas that can help both industries.

While in East Anglia I was very lucky to stay with my college friend Tash and her family. She now lives in London, but because of the pandemic is working from home and came back to Norfolk while I was there.

Leaving behind horses, my next visit was to the Mayhews at Old Hall Farm- a holding that was once a conventional arable and pig farm. Rebecca Mayhew, a Ciren land management graduate, started her livestock farming career with one Jersey cow, and has now built a herd of 41.

What makes Old Hall Farm unique is that the herd is one of 12 in the UK listed on the Cow Calf Dairy website- all of the calves are kept on their mothers until they are weaned at 5-6 months old. Milk is processed on site and they sell a range of dairy products, as well as meat and local produce, in their excellent farm shop.

Calves at foot at Old Hall Farm

One of my Nuffield objectives is to establish whether commercial farms - especially those selling milk on standard contracts- can feasibly run cow- calf contact systems. In the lead up to this trip I’d spent a lot of time writing a literature review on cow- calf contact as part of my accredited Nuffield module, and had spoken to researchers in Germany and Canada.

After that extensive reading it was brilliant to see the system in the flesh, and to be able to ask questions about the opportunities and challenges presented in the research. On the continent cow- calf contact systems do not appear to be as unusual, and in Germany there is even a 1000 cow unit which is fully housed and has calves at foot.

At Old Hall Farm the cows are milked once a day, coming in to the parlour by name, and the calves wait in the collecting yard while their mothers are milked. Returning to the field, the cows were very keen to get to their grass (they were grazed on beautiful herbal leys, as part of the farm’s regenerative approach) and the calves followed in their own time. While in the field I did see calves drinking, but they also socialised together. A lot of the European literature describes calves having their own indoor space (or kindergarten) which they can access and the cows can’t, and states that they will spend a lot of time there away from the cows.

Rebecca was a very interesting and inspiring host, and I really admired her farming ethos, open mindedness, and vision. Aside from the dairy herd the Mayhews also have a herd of beef cattle (sucklers, and beef x dairy calves- these run in a mob with the dry dairy cows), pigs, goats, and an assortment of other farmyard animals, including peacocks. This means that the farm shop is stocked with lots of homegrown produce, and the farm benefits from a diversity of species.

The herbal lays are grazed on the concept of eat a third, leave a third, trample a third, and the Mayhews are part of a regenerative agriculture group. The farm principle’s centre ethics for animals and the environment, and I look forward to seeing what Rebecca and her team do next.

After Old Hall Farm I visited two autumn block calving herds, to learn about the options for dairy bull calves in East Anglia. There are very few dairy herds in this part of the country, as the majority of the land is given over to arable farming, and I was told that all of the farms are on Arla contracts- meaning of course that they have been exposed early to the leading standards of ethical management.

As a TB4 area, farms in East Anglia have a standard tb testing interval of four years- annually if selling raw milk- and the incidence of tb is low, although most of the farmers I spoke to were concerned that it is increasing. This means that dairy farmers in East Anglia already have an advantage over farmers in the west, as movement of animals between holdings is much easier.

Both of the farms that I visited had sales routes for bull calves, and both told me that they would have ample other options if their usual buyers stopped. Their bull calves moved with beef calves to beef units, where they were raised to finishing.

Renting land for in-house rearing operations seems to also be an option, as I was told that the reduction in value in combinable crops has led arable farmers to potentially see the benefit of renting out land on grass leys. Integrating livestock into the rotation on an owned basis was not reported as an option that arable farmers seemed keen on at the moment, but I could see clear potential for a holistic livestock-arable rotation between farms and enterprises.

I also spoke to the farmers about their use of sexed semen in block calving systems. The impact of reduced conception rate on the tightness of a calving block (which ultimately drives the profitability of a block calving system) is a block for many farmers. I was shown fertility data comparing conventional and sexed bulls, and given some background on the farmers’ approach to selecting cows for sexed semen, heat detection, and ensuring that sexed semen conception rate was as comparable to conventional as possible. While I’ll save those findings for a more official Nuffield setting, the farmers’ approach was practical and something that other block calvers could embrace.

My trip to East Anglia was a brilliant start to my studies. It was great to see the links between racing and dairy, and to make contacts to continue that learning throughout my scholarship. Old Hall Farm gave me a first taste of cow- calf contact dairy in a practical setting, and has answered many of my questions about the feasibility of such an approach while raising many others. On the conventional side I was reminded of how much more straight forward integrated dairy and beef systems would be were the whole country on a four year tb testing interval, and I picked up some excellent tips on sexed semen use. I saw the scope and potential of using livestock to improve soil health, and the challenges and opportunities of being dairy farmers in a predominantly arable area. The farmers I met were brilliant and inspiring, and I am hugely grateful to them all for taking the time to speak to me and to show me their cows and farms.

The next step for Nuffield will be a trip to Scotland at the end of the month to visit another cow-calf contact system. I also hope to finish and share the findings of my farmer survey in the near future. As ever, if anyone has suggestions of people to visit (at home or in the UK) please get in touch.