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2011 farm walk
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An evening with the Norbreck Herd
With a group of some 120 visitors the evening commenced at nearby Springfield farm where Philip Halhead explained that in 1933 his Grandfather, who was one of nine brothers, started the Norbreck Herd at Norbreck farm with 30 milking cows, his father Richard took on the farm in 1965 with 65 milking cows and when Philip returned from college to work on the farm in 1993 they had around 130 cows and today they milk 230 with an expansion plan to increase this to 300 Holstein cows. Sexed semen is used on the dairy herd. The dairy calves when they reach four months of age are contract reared off farm by Stephen Robinson at High Bracken Hall, Kendal, the heifers returning to the farm at around two years of age ready to calve. They also import dairy cattle from Holland and of course Philip has his Norbreck Genetics business that aims to supply a variety of beef breed semen to all parts of the world but concentrates mainly on the British Blue breed. With a shortage of agricultural ground to buy they are fortunate enough to be able to graze their suckler cows, calves and recipients at Springfield Farm under an agreement with the Roskell family who also produce some 30 acres of whole crop cereals for them that is then delivered to Norbreck Farm and fed to their Holstein dairy herd. A walk around the cattle ensued and the heavens decided to shower us with rain that, although not enough to dampen our spirits, did give us a timely reminder to set off for Norbreck Farm.
Philip explained that they have two herdsmen working at the farm, Nick Haigh who looks after the dairy herd and more recently Ian Townson who has taken on the care of the British Blue herd. Both were on hand to explain any points that the assembled visitors wanted to raise. At Norbreck Farm we had a tour of the brood cows that had been chosen to show a variety of size, shape, growth etc. that had been achieved through careful selection of bulls and also to produce embryos and young stock to the requirements of a variety of customers.
Next came a visit to view the bulls that had recently returned from the AI stud, Boothlow Dynamo and Bluegrass Cyclone. Both bulls having proved very popular with ‘Blue’ breeders.
The evening finished with a very welcome hog roast supper and a vote of thanks to Philip and his family on behalf of all those present.
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