Ken Gill March/April Update 2025
Farming for Nature Award
- Ken is a Farming for Nature ambassador for 2024
- He held a farm walk on 4th May
- Watch a video for his farm below
Habitats on the farm
- Existing hedgerow management
- New hedge plans
- Oak and semi-natural woodland
Weights & sales
- Weights for 2024 born calves
- Turnout weights for 2023 born cattle
- 11 cull cows sold to Tully
Media
Ken won an award as a Farming for Nature ambassador in 2024. A video was recently produced on his farm as part of this showcasing his farm system. Click below to watch it.
Biodiversity
As part of Ken’s Farming for Nature farm walk, he discussed a number of important areas for biodiversity on his farm as follows;
1. Hedgerow management
Ken described how he likes to leave his hedges as wide and as dense as possible. They provide an excellent habitat for nesting birds and wildlife corridors for small mammals. The flowering trees in the hedges also provide food to birds, bees and other pollinators. Ruth Wilson from the National Biodiversity Data Centre pointed out the many flower species that were also living in the hedge margin. They also provide immense value for Ken in the form of shelter for his livestock – both from intense heat, and from wind and rain throughout the year.
Ken showed an example of a hedge that he had asked a contractor to ‘trim back’ for him. However the hedge was cut much lower and tighter than he would have liked so he emphasised the importance of communicating with your contractor about what type of hedge that you’re looking for.
Over-trimming hedges every year can lead to the hedge dying out over time and James Ham described how older hedges can be layed over the winter period to help rejuvenate them, and create more dense hedges for the future.
Figure 1: Ken discussing his hedgerow management on the farm
2. Oak forestry
The Scots pine (nurse crop) and oak forestry was planted in a wet, rushy field back in 2000. Ken availed of a grant to plant and thin the plantation over the years, and was also paid an annual premium for it. Now no annual premium is available and while some farmers might continue to harvest the trees and replant them, Ken does not plan to do so. He will carry out some routine maintenance on the area and remove any dead trees, but is delighted to keep the habitat for biodiversity on his farm. He also shows the natural vegetation that is growing under the trees. He may also graze the vegetation with cattle in the future.
Figure 2: The entrance to Ken’s oak plantation
3. New hedgerow
As part of the ACRES scheme, Ken planted approximately 500 metres of new hedging on his farm in spring 2023. Some of the varieties included oak, whitethorn, blackthorn, guelder rose and dog’s rose. The soil was loosened before planting the trees using a digger. At the time of planting Ken was also laying a water pipe along the hedgerow area so he carried out the 2 jobs at once.
The trees were not trimmed back at the time of sowing, and have not been trimmed since. Instead Ken will allow the hedge to grow and then lay it to help make it denser. An electric fence is present on both sides to protect it from livestock damage, and although some hares attacked the blackthorn trees after planting, the remaining trees are growing well.
While Ken recognises the importance of planting new hedges, he is keen to emphasise that protecting and improving existing hedges is equally, if not more important for biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
Figure 3: The new hedge which was planted in spring 2023
4. Semi-natural woodland
One of Ken’s proudest areas on the farm was his native woodland which runs along the boundary of his farm and divides it from the bog on the other side. This will be his next area of the farm to start working on clearing fallen trees and collecting them for firewood. He tried to produce charcoal from them before using a kiln but unfortunately the area is unsuitable for carrying it out. Some oak trees were planted there in the past and have continued to grow and cover more area over time, allowing other native species of plants and trees to also grow.
Fortunately for Ken, a man called Mr. Moss began constructing an old roadway through the forestry before his family moved there. This provides an access corridor through the woodland which means Ken can drive a tractor and trailer through it.
The woodland is home to a number of species including a barn owl, red squirrel and most recently a cuckoo bird, along with other birds, pollinators, small mammals and flowers.
Figure 4: The semi-natural woodland is Ken’s next area to start working on
Performance
Ken weighed cattle on his farm on 18th March. The autumn 2024 born bullocks (31) averaged 218kg and gained 0.9 kg/day on average since birth.
The autumn 2024 born heifers (31) averaged 206kg and gained 0.86 kg/day since birth.
The 2023 bullocks (42) averaged 479kg on 26th February and gained 0.47kg/day since they were housed on 18th December, but had gained 1kg/day over their time on the catch crop of turnips, rape and kale.
The 2023 heifers (10) averaged 419kg and gained 0.31kg/day since 18th December, but had gained 0.85kg/day during their time on the catch crop.
Ken decided to sell 11 empty cows to the Tully Performance Test Centre on 1st April which helped to reduce his demand at grass. They averaged 513kg live weight. Ken has the spring born calves from 2024 and has considered selling them live, but is happy to keep them at grass with his own stock at present.
Figure 5: The autumn 2024 born bullocks and heifers, with the store cattle in the background