Dairy farmer's attitude to adversity reaps rewards
16 December 2015
The UK’s first Skyr producer has successfully manufactured around three tonnes of the Icelandic cultured dairy product, similar to strained yoghurt, since the opening of their on-farm production facility this summer.
“We’ve been thrilled with the uptake of the product so far,” says Sam Moorhouse of Hesper Farm, near Skipton. “Before the diversification we were selling all of our liquid milk to a processor, but like many we were feeling increased pressures on farm income.
“I knew that I wanted to add value to the raw product we were producing and as a result I made my first trip to Iceland in January 2014 after reading an article about the Icelandic cow and the production of Skyr.”
Sam returned to the UK convinced this was a viable option for the future of his family farm.
The Moorhouse’s have since launched four flavours of Skyr and are pleased with uptake, which they attribute to health properties of the product.
“The product is being recognised in the UK and worldwide now, as more and more consumers want high protein and virtually fat free products,” explains Sam
“Cow nutrition has played a vital role in producing milk constituents of 3.3 per cent protein and 4 per cent butterfat, which in turn has produced consistent milk suitable for manufacture into Skyr.
“We feed our herd with the view of keeping yields up and milk quality stable. The TMR consists of grass silage, brewer’s grains, caustic wheat, sugar beet feed, soya and soya hulls.
“We’ve always included sugar beet feed from Trident Feeds in the ration as it’s a healthier form of energy than the energy gained from starch. The cows really benefit from it, and we’ve had less health issues such as clinical acidosis since including it in the diet.”
Dr Michael Marsden, head of technical at Trident Feeds supports Sam’s view. “Sugar beet feed is one of the most effective sources of digestible fibre-based energy available for ruminants,” he explains.
“It’s a highly palatable feed and can be used in combination with less palatable feeds to stimulate intakes and increase yields, while the slowly available energy helps buffer against digestive upsets.
“This obviously helps improve feed conversion efficiency as well as increasing animal performance which are both really important to the success of Moorhouse enterprise.”
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