On August 2^nd I officially began my ruminant placement at ForFarmers. It was a bright Monday morning and I headed to the Portbury office to meet my mentor Cara Green. I received a very warm welcome and an introduction to the company.

The following day I headed to Exeter, where I got to meet my other marketing colleague Katie. She kindly gave me an insight into the social media platforms that ForFarmers use to interact with their target audience. This is an area that I hope to get involved with during my placement year. I was also lucky to get a tour around the new state of the art mill by the mill manager, Nick Parsons. It was really interesting to see the inner workings of the mill and the new mixer being installed.

I was introduced to the Interherd programme by Alison Ewing and was lucky enough to meet her out on farm in Derbyshire, where we visited a 200-head Holstein dairy herd.

Alison took me through step by step the checks she would complete during a monthly visit. Firstly we took samples of their maize, wholecrop and silage so it could be sent off for testing, which allows Alison to get a break down of the starch, protein and fat percentages for each forage. The next step was to get an overview of the milking herd. We walked the cows and body condition scored a good handful in order to get an average BCS of the whole herd. We also carried out smoke bomb test in the cubicle sheds to check for clean air and enough circulation. This was a great day because I got a real insight into how Account Managers carry out their farm visits and support customers.

August has flown by and what a busy month I have had. My last week has been one of the most insightful to date. On Tuesday 24^th of August I set off bright and early from Bristol to meet Michelle Cross, a Forage Specialist. Whitland Mart is a popular livestock market in South Wales which is where I met Michelle. I was able to meet a few local farmers and have some stimulating conversations with them. Michelle talked me through additives and the importance of them. A few additive orders came in so we completed a few farm visits and drop a couple of deliveries.

One of the main visits during the day, was looking at the development of the maize trail plots in Haverfordwest. We talked through the importance of soil nutrition in relation to photosynthesis enabling the maize seeds to germinate and therefore stimulate growth.

The next two days in South Wales I spent with Peter Whittal-Williams who is one of the Youngstock specialists at ForFarmers. Both days were invaluable and I learnt so much from my time spent with Peter.  I gained knowledge about the five main milk powders ForFarmers supply and the key benefits of each one.

The first farm visit on Wednesday was successful as we sold three pallets of VITAMILK Omega Gold. This is a whey based milk powder which has 23% protein and 17% fat. We then headed to Sion Thomas’ dairy farm who runs a 600 dairy herd of Shorthorns through a 70 point rotary parlour. During this visit we discussed VITAMILK Premium, this is a skim based milk powder which has a composition of 24% protein and 16% fat. Skim based milk powders keep the calf fuller for longer as they take up to 12 hours to be digested, whereas whey based powders can be digested by the calf within two hours of being fed. Whey based powders typically have to be fed multiple times due to being rapidly digestible. This can lead to higher concentrate intakes from a younger age.

The last visit of the day was at Geraint and Richard Davies’ farm. These customers put 650 Holstein cows through the parlour and these are split into high and low yielders which enables them to run their farm efficiently and produce 10,500 litres on average. It was an insightful visit and an opportunity to see how the animals were perfoming on various ForFarmers products.