Farmers weigh up options for safe handling facilities

Friday 15 January 2010

ON a cold, frosty, yet sunny day in December, 49 farmers turned out for this East Cumbria event to learn more about safe handling facilities for livestock.

Some travelled from as far a field as Kirkby Lonsdale, Ulverston, Middleton in Teesdale and Cheshire .

Even Sir Ken Morrison was in attendance, as the day was of particular interest to the development of Morrisons' new beef unit.

Organised by Cumbria Farmer Network, the Northwest Livestock Programme demonstration event at Slosh Farm, Appleby, had a range of equipment on display and an opportunity to see some of it in action.

Carrs Billington Agriculture, IAE, Rancher and Ritchie were in attendance with cattle and sheep handling equipment.

(To view the type of equipment that was on display, use the links in the "Useful Links" box to the right of this report).

Dale Shaw from Ritchie talked about livestock safe handling systems and used a scale model of a cattle handling system to demonstrate their equipment.

Host for the day, Robert Baxter demonstrated his cattle handling system by running a group of cattle through the Rancher equipment with IAE race and back into the shed. The stock ran very well through the system considering the presence of people looking on!

It was a successful event with many farmers looking at improving their own livestock handling systems having now seen the options available to them.