A typical year
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Mixed farming in the north of England
The following calendar is an attempt to show some of the various
activities that will be taking place on farms throughout the year.
It is based mainly on the farming year on a mixed farm in the north of
England but an attempt has been made to include other areas of the UK within
the calendar.
Because each farm is different and each part of the country will be involved
in similar activities at different times throughout the year there will be
some duplication of tasks within months.
You may ask why the calendar starts in September. This is partly because
most farmers consider their year starts then, particularly the arable farmer
as this is the time of year when they will be preparing their fields for the
next years harvest; partly for historic reasons in that many farm tenancies
used to begin in September to allow the outgoing farmer to take his crop
before the ingoing farmer planted his new crop and lastly, because this is
the month in which I have created the calendar!
- September
- Preparation for gimmer and draft ewe sales
- Wether lambs sold as they finish or as store lambs for further fattening
- Wean lambs
- Combine harvest cereals, bale and cart straw
- Ploughing and general cultivations
- Harvest potatoes
- Drill winter wheat, oilseed rape and barley
- October
- Ewes dipped and wool clipped around tail, ready for tupping to
begin [Mating time]
- Unfinished wether lambs sold as stores or brought inside for
further fattening
House feeding cattle
- Wean and house calves
- Cultivate arable fields
- Drill winter wheat
- Harvest potatoes
- Harvest sugar beet
- November
- Tup sales
- Feed livestock
- Male calves castrated before the onset of frost
- Grass deteriorates in quality and will stop growing soon.
- House cows
- Ploughing
- Late drilling of wheat
- Liquid fertiliser applied to sugar beet fields
- Continue to sell corn and arrange collection ex farm storage
- December
- Ploughing
- Spray cereals
- Feed livestock
- January
- General farm maintenance
- Sheep work - Flock fed sugar beet daily including sheep nuts and
hay fed if frosty or snow cover
- House sheep
- Calves weaned at end of month and fed on concentrates and sugar
beet ration
- Spread slurry if the fields are dry and firm, a good frost is very
useful at this time. These are the fields from which hay or silage will be
taken later in the year.
- February
- General farm maintenance
- Sheep brought in for pregnancy scanning and housing
- Feed livestock
- Calving
- Spread slurry
- March
- Sheep sorted into lambing groups (according to number of lambs
expected) and the feeding of concentrates begins
- Calving
- Breeding ewes vaccinated
- Ewes feet trimmed against footrot
- Lambing begins - they receive 24 hour a day attention and give the
farmer many sleepless nights
- Spread slurry
- Top dress cereals
- Liquid fertiliser applied to potato fields
- Drill sugar beet
- Fertilise and spray crops
- April
- Gimmer hoggs dosed against worms and dipped
- Calving
- Lambing mostly completed, but young lambs just turned out are very
vulnerable to foxes and crows
- Fertiliser spread on grazing fields to aid spring growth - the
grass will be cut for hay or silage later in the year
- Plant potatoes
- Drill oil seed rape
- Drill vining peas
- Top dress cereals
- Spray cereals and sugar beet
- May
- Clean out all livestock buildings
- Fencing and walling repairs
- All lambs tailed, castrated, ear-notched and ear-tagged
- Fertiliser and muck spreading
- Stock removed from silage fields and fertiliser is spread to allow
six weeks growth before cutting
- Shear the long tails of the sheep to prevent fly strike i.e. flies
laying their eggs in the wool and producing maggots that eat into the sheep
- Spray potatoes, cereals, sugar beet and peas
- June
- Sheep shearing
- Hay making
- Routine sheep work (drenching for worms, footbathing, etc)
- Silaging
- Spring-born calves de-horned
- Irrigate potatoes to encourage growth and 'filling out'
- July
- Lambs given worm dose vaccinations and footbaths
- Shearing
- Hay making
- Silaging
- Irrigate potatoes
- Spray potatoes
- Vining peas
- Begin combining cereals
- Baling and carting straw or straw chopped for incorporation into
ground by cultivations
- August
- Silage making
- Lambs weaned and turned onto the grass left after the hay and
silage crops have been taken [known as aftermath grazing]
- Combine harvest cereals, bale and cart straw
- Begin ploughing and cultivations for next years cereals
David Pickersgill 2000
Farming