Thanks to all those who came to Open Farm Sunday it was a great success with about 50 families coming. The weight of Tiffany was 865kg. My letter hunt answer was “Farming Matters.”

Embryo Transfer

During the last year we have used embryo transfer on one of our pedigree cattle. The selected cow is given injections to make her super ovulate, which means she should release loads of eggs which are then fertilised by Artificial Insemination (AI). 7 days later she is flushed by putting a small tube through her vagina and cervix then flushing a weak saline solution in and sucking it out again. The embryos are then found using a microscope. They are then implanted into recipient cows who are at the same stage in their breeding cycle as the donor, or they are frozen in liquid nitrogen to use later. This year we used embryo transfer on a cow called Tiffany who is our best British Blue.  We did it twice and the first time we got 17 embryos and the second time we got 10. This enables us to get extra calves from our best cow. We implanted 4 fresh embryos, resulting in 3 pregnancies due in November and will be implanting some of the frozen embryos this week.

Shows

We had an enjoyable Suffolk Show and were delighted to win Champion Suffolk Sheep for the second time ever. The first time we won it was in 1997. Next week Mum and Dad are off to the Norfolk Show.

New Shed

The footings for the new shed have been put in and the concrete needs 14 days to cure enough to start building on it. The manufacturing of the steelwork can start now that the levels have been measured.

Arable

The barley has been sprayed with a fungicide called “ear wash” to clean the ears and top leaves of the crop. The recent rains and showers have done a lot of good and most of the crops look very healthy and quite weed free.


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