The adventure continues. Next on our dock was two schools to see, one south and one north. The Barony campus near Dumfries and the campus in Aberdeen.
The kid and I seem to still be getting along.
Before we started our Thursday morning we had our standard two link sausage breakfast. A staple in Scotland is Haggis, the ground meal at the top of the plate. Haggis is comprised of a lot, mainly sheep organs and oatmeal. Not bad, but not terribly tasty either.
The drive down to Dumfries was spectacular. Snow, sunshine, and rolling rural farm ground. The Barony campus is comprised with old and new buildings; all well kept and ready for action.
Heather showed us around.
The school's main agricultural focus is on dairy and the feed that goes with it.
Dairy cows are a different duck. Often you have to bring them in and tend to their hooves. This is one way of doing it!
They also teach a bit of forestry; including sawmilling.
We had lunch on campus. Irn Bru is the Pepsi of Scotland.
Then we took a field trip with the students to a local farm.
Here, they focus mainly on fattening cattle.
Down south, the main crop they use for high protien feed is silaged maize.
Around here, any big truck is called a lorry. They use this guy to haul fat cattle to the slaughterhouse.
That afternoon we jumped on a train and headed north to Aberdeen. About a five hour venture.
Friday morning we met up with Phil who gave us a grand tour of the school and the area.
Less dairy up here and mainly beef cattle.
Similar systems for working cattle as us. They call a squeeze chute a crush, however. Also, almost all their paneling is galvanized.
90% of all the cattle getting fattened live under a shed. The UK in general is not a big fan of feedlots. Keeps them out of the rain, I guess. But the air is stale and damp in here. One thing you see on almost all the cattle being fattened are shaved backs. The main reason for doing so is to keep them cool. Interesting.
Up north, no maize is grown. But a lot of barley is. This is mainly for malting at whiskey distilleries. But if it doesn't make malt, they feed it to cattle.
After a tour around the SRUC Aberdeen farm, we went to the local sale barn. No small matter.
The barn in Aberdeen is grand central station for all things farm. It's also where producers come to socialize, just like in the States.
This probably the biggest sales ring in the Scotland and likely the UK.
They grow their cattle big. These Charolais average 682 kilograms, which is 1500 pounds. That's a big T-bone. They didn't go for cheap either. As far as I can figure, about $3300 a critter! The locals said that was incredibly high. Just like in the US, the biggest driving factor in the market is the low cattle numbers.
Giddy up.
Fun stuff. We're pretty much done with our college tours. I think Dante likes what he sees. We'll see which school best suits his fancy. Now we'll head back to Edinburgh and see some history. Let's ranch.
No comments:
Post a Comment