Argyllshire Monitor Farm

While the trade for livestock might be rising, costs are rising too, with the gap between ‘hard to get’, says Craig Archibald, Argyll Monitor Farmer. Farming in Islay provides its own challenges, but tackling costs, efficiency, keeping up to date and bringing more of the family into the business were the key drivers behind the decision to become a Monitor Farm.  

Two years in, and change is underway, but Craig explains that there were some wrong turns to start with. “We have been running hard to do a lot of stuff, but I would say it has taken until now to really find the problems. You can try hard to fix something, but that can actually make the problem worse.” 

This has been the case with some of the sheep. “We knew they were inefficient so we ended up keeping more ewes to maintain the lambing percentage, then last winter we had fewer old sheep and a lot of gimmers who were not fit for the hard winter.” This year, the farm has a gimmering plan which tackles everything from replacement selection to maintaining body condition score. It has also made changes to both hill and lowland flocks.  

Rather than sell 700 fat lambs, they will keep 200 crossbred ewes on the lower land, aiming to sell 300 lambs as stores by early August. This will reduce grazing pressure and feed costs as there is little grass for fattening due to geese grazing. It also means they need to produce less from the hill Blackfaces who predominantly produce replacements. They are being tupped with Aberfield and Logie rams as part of a trial to see which perform best. Overall, Craig’s aim is to reduce ewe numbers from 1,050 to 900 but to maintain current output. 

The cattle enterprise is also seeing change as a result of the Monitor Farm, with cows being weighed, condition scored and their performance recorded in order to find out the best type for the system. “It’s not easy – it’s a warren! Some cows are weaning a calf which is close to half their bodyweight, while some cows are fat and have calves which are not that big. We sell store calves so they have to look good to sell.” 

Collecting all the data associated with the projects can be complicated, with technology having ‘mixed results’, he says. “For the cattle we have a tag reader, a crush with a weigh cell, a tablet and wifi to the crush but getting everything to talk is hard! We can do it all manually which takes more time, but it would be good to know where the frailties are with the system.” 

Analysing all the data and then doing something with it is another challenge on a busy farm, so the support from specialists has been welcome, he adds. “It is sometimes hard to put a plan into action and then keep going.  

“That’s what we found with starting rotational grazing – we would have given up without the adviser being there. We were able to speak to him about it and it did come right. We got two weeks more grazing in autumn and calf weights were better than our average. I thought the cattle would just make a mess, but there seemed to be more grass to hold the surface. We will do it again, but we do have an issue getting water to the paddocks when we split fields.” 

This year, Craig will be trialling cow collars as part of the Monitor Farm, and while he was initially sceptical, he is starting to see how they could help manage cows on some rougher grazing while allowing their calves to graze better quality grass.  

Being able to see things differently is one of the benefits of the Monitor Farm programme, he says. “We were farming before, but didn’t know how to change. When I looked at my fields, I thought they always had to be like that, but when we started doing rotational grazing I realised they didn’t have to be. We have always been cautious, but the farm doesn’t always have to look the same – there is no real reason we can’t change things. 

 “The next stage is to look at whether all the work is making enough of a difference financially. We have also had more and better family discussions because of the Monitor Farm – we are all much more open about the business and it will be really interesting to see how all of the Monitor Farms look at the end of four years.” 

“We have had more and better family discussions because of the Monitor Farm – we are all much more open about the business.”