A Norfolk cattle farmer is planting different forage crops and trialling new calving dates to make his herd more resilient to droughts and economic challenges.
James Runciman has a herd of mainly Aberdeen Angus cattle based at Croxton, near Fakenham, and is vice chairman of the National Farmers' Union's East Anglia livestock board.
After a year of rising feed costs and a sweltering summer drought which stopped grass growing on his rented pastures, he is making some radical changes.
They include switching to deeper-rooting drought-resilient forage crops and experimenting with autumn calving - timed to take best advantage of available food sources.
It is all part of a "ruthless" approach to efficiencies and animal weights which has already seen larger cows culled from the herd.
Amid so much uncertainty, Mr Runciman said it was vital to be willing to try new things.
"There is a lot of work going into the animals, but if you just keep doing what you have always done, you will always get the same results," he said.
"We have just planted a mix of lucerne, red clover, white clover - anything deep-rooting and leguminous so it does not need much nitrogen [fertiliser].
"It should massively reduce our reliance on bought-in proteins, like rapeseed meal and wheat distillers' pellets.
"Lucerne especially will grow in a drought because its roots go down 15 feet, and you can just keep cutting it for silage once you have established it."
Mr Runciman said he needed to buy supplementary feed during the drought-hit summer, and was forced to dip into his animals' winter supplies as traditional food sources ran dry.
"We were lucky enough to make 800 bales of hay from a neighbour but we have fed probably 350 of them already," he said.
"Usually we will make 300 bales of silage behind the pea viners, wrap up the straw that they leave, but there wasn't any this year. So it is all fairly tight."
The family farm has 450 acres of arable land, managed by Mr Runciman's brother Harry and father William. The livestock enterprise has 400-450 cattle, a mix of pedigree Aberdeen Angus and crosses.
"We have already got rid of the big continental types because they are too expensive," said Mr Runciman.
"When you weigh the calves and the cows you realise actually that tiny cow is weaning a bigger calf than that great big cow which is just standing at the fence eating all day.
"So we got rid of all the big cows. The daily maintenance is so much lower, but also where you could keep three 750kg cows, I could keep four 600kg cows, so I have got another calf from that area. I think your optimum cow would be 600-620kg live weight."
Despite reducing cattle sizes, the farm has recently invested in a new shed, with room for another 70 calving cows. Mr Runciman said the improved spacing and air flow had reduced health problems and antibiotic use.
"Calf losses plummeted last year, thankfully," he said. "And when the cows are out we can use the shed for a grain store or we could put Christmas turkeys in. It is all about flexibility."
Flexibility is also the driver for a trial to move calving, from spring to autumn, for 27 heifers, whose first new arrivals came last week. Mr Runciman hopes the change of timing will mean more food sources are available when they are needed most.
"It drives me mad, you spend all winter doing your best to look after a cow that then has a good calf and you turn them out on rubbish grass in April," he said.
"Because we rent all the grassland and it is all in environmental schemes [which limit fertiliser usage], it is just getting poorer and poorer.
"So it makes sense to have a dry cow with very limited demand on poor grass, and I will bring her back here in autumn so she can then ideally calve on the Westerwolds [a fast-growing ryegrass] behind the peas, so she has a big heap of fresh grass to eat all the time."
He added that animal feed prices have risen from £1.20 a day to £2.20 in the last 18 months - but better use of forage crops and arable by-products could reduce that to £1.60 "which makes a massive difference".
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