Buscot Wick Farm

Follow our journey if you are interested in:

• Managing a tight autumn block calving herd - aiming for a 9-week block
• Improving your herd fertility - bringing fertility back in-house and dramatically improving our conception rates
• Reseeding and renewing grazing - maximising the use of homegrown feed
• Reducing instances of Neospora on your farm - controlling and reducing instances of Neospora
• Getting a good return on tenant investment - with greater than 32% returns
• Increasing our autumn block milk return - achieving 9,000 litres per cow per year

Overview

Buscot Farm has been in the Kinch family for 75 years and is managed by Phil Kinch in partnership with his wife and parents. The farm's dairy production activities are closely managed by Herd Manager Shane MacNamee, who operates an extremely tight control over their autumn block calving herd. 

Our farm

Based on the Oxfordshire-Gloucestershire border, just off the M4 near Swindon, the farm consists of 1,000 hectares - a quarter of which is committed to dairy, including a 67-hectare grazing platform, with the remainder given over to arable.

Our herd

The herd is currently made up of 360 autumn calving and 80 spring calving cows, with an increasing number of Norwegian Red and Flekveigh cross, achieving 8,500 litres of milk per cow per year with 13% butterfat and 3.47% protein mix, milking twice per day. 

They graze from March through to October and generate 115 + 105 home-reared heifers with an average age at first calving of 24 months. 

Our journey

Their journey has seen them concentrate on reducing cases of Neospora in their herd, a major focus on improving fertility rates with investment in heat detection collars and a drive to improve many small contributing factors that lead to major change overall.

Generating a healthy return on tennant capital whilst maintaining a good working environment are other key aims of the farm.

Our key performance figures

Buscot Wick openly share their KPIs so you can see how they perform against a number or technical and financial measures.

• Review our key performance indicators here 

Previous meetings

• July 2018 - Buscot Wick strategic farm launch - Phil Kinch and Herdsman Ben Redman provide an overview of Buscot Wick Farm, a Farm Tour with a broad look at their aims and objectives.
• March 2019 -Tackling Neospora update - Phil and Ben provide an overview of their work to reduce Neospora in their herd during the height of a longstanding drought on the farm - learning not currently available for this event
• July 2019 - Improving block calving herd fertility - Phil and Ben are joined by vet Dave Gilbert providing an overview of their recent success in bringing fertility back in-house
• November 2019 - Futureproofing your business - Phil is joined by The Dairy Group MD Ian Powell for a session looking at planning for success and stability and mitigating risk on your farm 
• November 2020 - Maximising returns from growing heifers - Phil Kinch from Buscot Wick Farm, along with independent nutrition consultant Hefin Richards, explore the principles of maximising growth of the growing heifers.

Explore our other strategic dairy farms