With just a few days to go until the Home Farm Open Day, we would like to formally introduce our hosts, David Shuttleworth family. Husband and wife David and Karen and their 2 boys, Henry and Robert are a very motivated, progressive farming family.
The farm was bought in partnership in 1984 at 170 acres and very little building wise. A cubicle shed was erected in the late 1980s and approximately 30 years ago they started milking 80 cows. In the time of Foot and Mouth they purchased another 100 acres and with being cattle dealers had cows on farm that needed milking which became the start of the expansion and development of the milking herd. The rest of the land was purchased around 2022 and the partnership split approximately 5 years ago.
David now manages a 530-acre unit, and his 610-cow Holstein herd averages 10,000 litres. David’s dry cows graze in the summer, but his milking cows are indoors. They calve all year round, leading to a level milk profile through the year. As it is a flying herd, they’re not breeding their own replacements. On average there are 510 cows milking with approximately 225 through the 5 AMS installed in October 2024, 80 in a heifer group and the rest in the pregnant cow group both milked twice a day through the parlour. The milking parlour at Home Farm was updated 18 years ago to 25-a-side, so 50 cows can be milked at once. David milks twice daily and has a team of five men in a morning and four in an afternoon, with one man with him all day, four days a week.
All calves are sold at 8-10 weeks of age.
There are 25 acres plantations, 115 acres wheat for Alkalage®, 30 acres grazing land, 340 acres cut 3 times for silage, of which 200 acres is also cut a fourth time.
David introduced Alkalage® to his PMR diet back in 2023, when the weather and forage growth challenges led him to change direction, harvesting 115 acres of wheat four weeks late and treating it with Home n’ Dry®. The aim is to continue to improve the grass silage quality to work alongside the Alkalage®. Maize silage has also been bought in to ensure adequate forage quantities over the past 2 winter periods. The PMR is then balanced with straights purchased and the cows are fed to yield over and above the M+33kg base diet through the AMS and parlour.
Cow health is a priority on the farm and therefore David decided to invest in a rumination and fertility monitoring system last year to help detect sick cows quicker and improve resilience and sustainability of the herd.
The changes in system, management and diet, including the introduction of Alkalage®, have all contributed to less cows struggling after calving and whilst lactating. Fertility has improved and fewer cows go at no value. Overall cow health continues to improve and that leads to further improvements in performance.
David and his wife Karen also have a flock of pedigree sheep. Hever Park pedigree flock now runs to around 30 breeding ewes, breeding their own replacements as well as buying occasional females and a new tup each year. They also undertake embryo transfers using Mules as recipients to provide additional Beltex lambs.
May we take this opportunity to once again sincerely thank David, Karen and family for allowing us to host this event at Home Farm.
For further information about Alkalage, please contact your local Dugdale Nutrition sales representative at https://www.dugdalenutrition.com/sales or call the Alka-line on