February 2018
Kit Pottow of East Farm, Knook, penned the following notes which were published in the February 2018 issue of The Upper Wylye Parish News:
For those intrigued, lunch was served at 1.30 prompt! All cattle clean, well fed and milked (well, for the first shift).
Without wanting to harp back too much on the festive period, I must highlight one rather fun evening spent with local friends. Naturally, conversation covered many subjects but there was an emphasis on my husband’s work on the farm (he is rarely seen out in public). I think they were surprised by how technical, scientific and forward thinking our industry is. In their defence why should they be any the wiser? After all, we no longer live in an environment where a high number of the community work, live or have a connection to the local farms. In the past, the day to day running of the farms would be part of conversations, visibly more evident and people maybe had empathy sadly this no longer exists on all counts.
It is obvious that machinery and technology have put paid to a degree of man power, but we must accept times are changing. However, certain areas do not change, and one is the history behind our herd of cows. Since the 1960s we have had a pedigree herd of Holstein-Friesians, originally bred in Holland and Northern Germany. My father-in-law had the good business sense and knowledge to appreciate that this breed was the way forward for milk production, rather than the Short Horn which is a dual-purpose breed (beef and dairy). We have always been committed dairy farmers, so it was natural to move in that direction.
If you are regular walkers in the area, you may have seen cattle with ear tags which have the name of the sire (bull) and family name which is inherited from the mother, hence you have a continuing strain of families. Our first was Gem, Gem had a heifer (girl) who was also called Gem and, so it continues, and we have now bred 583 Gems. We can track their entire pedigree back to day one! As is the case with all our cows.
We cover a variety of names from Raquel, Pamela, Trixie, Ruby, Primrose, Angel, Peggy, Tulip, Debbie, Rosie and the list just keeps going. Folk find it highly amusing locating their name amongst the herd and, without wishing to sound like Farming Today (Radio 4, 5.45am every day) or The Archers which I hazard a guess is where most folk’s farming knowledge comes from, the process of caring for a pedigree herd is not straight forward or an easy one so I hope you will accept this as a simplified explanation on how our herd of black and whites is bred and named “Down on the Farm’.