CV Ref No. CV Reference No. - 16567
26-year old Dairy Stock Manager looking to further management career. Agriculture graduate from Newcastle University (2012) with wide range of livestock experience.
Qualifications and Experience
Relevant qualifications

Not listed

Type of farming wanted

Mainly Livestock

Other qualifications

First class degree BSc Agriculture with honours in Animal Production Science at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. John Edgar Trust Award 2014/15, scholarship to attend management course based at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester. Awarded the Royal Agricultural Society of England’s Student Award 2012. Finalist in RABDF Farm Health Management Competition 2011. Newcastle University candidate and finalist in RABDF Dairy Student of the Year Award 2012. NCFE Level 2 Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety Awarded: 18th August 2009. Calf Rearing course Warnborough College Distance Learning BAG207 Awarded: 15th September 2009. City & Guilds E-Quals Level 1 Certificate for IT Awarded: June 2007. Full clean UK driving licence held since January 2008; car + trailer (category B+E) held since November 2013. Telehandler/forklift licence held since January 2012. Chainsaw licence held since February 2014. PA1+6 (knapsack) spraying certificates held since April 2014.

Driving Licence

Full Car Licence, International

Equipment experience

Tractor, PA1, Telehandler/Fork Lift

Livestock experience

Dairy, Beef, Pig, Goat, Sheep, Lambing, Calving

Other equipment experience

Range of tractor and telehandler work to include feeding cows a TMR ration through Keenan mixer wagon; bedding stock with bale spreader; mucking out. ATVs used daily to move and check stock. I spent the 2010 & 2011 harvests working on a 2,000 acre arable farm growing wheat, oilseed rape, beans and sugar beet. Tasks primarily included carting, testing, weighing in, and tipping, grain. I also prepared grain sheds and carried out maintenance on vehicles, trailers and conveyors. Post-harvest I was involved in cultivations - spring tine harrowing, power harrowing and rolling. Other tractor experience includes topping, yard scraping, and raking as well as loader tasks with bucket, muck grab etc. I have telehandler/forklift experience, and have held a Group 3 (Telehandler) forklift licence since January 2012. I also have ATV and UV experience.

Other livestock experience

My dairy experience includes milking, feeding and checking stock, calf rearing (including disbudding), heat detection, mastitis identification and treatment, vaccinating, and foot trimming. I also have experience of the InterHerd data recording program. I have also done some feeding, involving preparing rations through a mixer wagon. I have become responsible for the youngstock enterprise, from birth of the newborn calf, up until bulling at 15 months of age. My pig experience involves artificial insemination, having spent the majority of my pig work during my gap year serving sows and gilt, and preparing farrowing paddocks and moving stock, as well as some electric fencing, ear tagging and checking of litters and farrowed sows. During 4 contract lambing periods, I have become competent in undertaking the following tasks: - assisting malpresented births - fostering orphaned lambs - stomach tubing - management of prolapses - ringing – tail docking and castrating lambs - worming ewes - entropion treatment.

Personal information
Sex

Male

Other Information

None

Age

26

Marital status

Yes, live with partner.

Nationality

British

Where are you currently living?

Buckinghamshire

First language

English

Do you have the right to work in the UK?

Yes

Other languages

-

Hobbies

Enjoy travelling, including South East Asia, North America and Australasia; also watching and playing sport, in particular rugby and tennis.

Pen picture (Height, weight etc.)

5'7, 85kg, athletic.

Relevant health problems

None

Farming background

At the outset, my current role primarily related to calf rearing; management of youngstock from birth (colostrum management, tagging etc.) through to weaning and rearing to bulling at 15 months and calving at 24 months of age. Other responsibilities with youngstock included disbudding and vaccinating animals. In January 2014, I was promoted to Dairy Stock Manager, responsible for the management of dry cows and calving cows, co-ordinating difficult calvings and management of the immediate post-calver. For the 2014 calving season daily management of youngstock was undertaken by an apprentice calf rearer under my supervision, thereby freeing me sufficiently to enable me to additionally manage the dry and calving cows. My primary focus during the calving season was, of course, monitoring calving cows and heifers, and providing further support as and when required. Throughout this period, I was responsible for a team of up to 7 full-time staff, in addition to seasonal and part-time employees, including international and veterinary students. I was also heavily involved in the whole recruitment process, with a number of full- and part-time staff, including assessments, inductions and reviews. For the 2015 calving season, I took on additional responsibility for freshly calved cows and heifers. This included milk fever prevention and treatment, in addition to downer cow management. Further responsibilities included the overseeing and supervision of milkings and yard teams of staff. I was also involved in drawing up protocols for staff to follow, relating to areas including milking and calf rearing. I set up and implemented an on-call schedule, enabling staff to receive prompt support from the appropriate duty manager, in cases of emergency or outside of normal working hours. Special Projects I also carried out a range of special projects, including research into, and the resulting installation of: • a lighting programme within the cubicle accommodation, culminating in a 10-15% average increase in milk yield; • the design of a new isolated heifer rearing shed, involving research visits to other farms; • a cost-benefit analysis and break-even assessment of three times per-day milking and the subsequent implementation of the arrangement; • detailed record-keeping of calf losses for 2012-present, providing comparative data across every year since joining the farm enabling patterns to be established and corrective actions to be taken; • a budget for assessing the profitability of drying-off at a set milk yield litreage. Other Areas of Activity In terms of genetic selection and fertility, I became responsible for bull selection in 2014 onwards, and initiated the use of genomic and sexed bulls alongside conventional bulls and semen. From almost 300 services, I achieved a personal PD-positive percentage of 43% for the 2014-15 breeding season (compared with the herd average of 35% on 936 services). I have experience of both routine (100 DIM and drying-off) foot-trimming, and corrective trims for both chronic and acute hoof problems. My tractor experience on the dairy includes feeding adult stock with the use of a Keenan (TMR ration); and bedding using a bale spreader, as relief cover for the full-time tractor driver. BCMS passport applications, as well as registering of deaths and on/off movements also fell within my remit. I also have a wide range of record-keeping experience including use of the InterHerd software. I developed a website for the farm business, in order to attract and facilitate job and placement applications, allowing prospective staff to upload a CV and send a covering message directly to the farm email address. I took responsibility for ordering the majority of supplies such as eartags, chemical, calf pellets and the like. I was also involved with ration formulation, alongside the farm directors. I also communicated with buyers of calves and co-ordinated such movements on a weekly basis during the calving season. I also helped facilitate regular strategic / planning meetings with directors, as well as whole staff meetings. Personal Development With regard to CPD, I attended the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin’s 2014 conference and visited several large dairies. I preceded the conference with a two-day scholarship onto PDPW’s Cornerstone Academy. I also represented the farm at the 2015 European Dairy Farmers (EDF) Congress in Rostock, Germany, and went on to represent it at a pre-trial meeting in Paris, organised by Hypred. I have also been involved with co-ordinating and presenting to, a variety of farm visitors including a Finance team from McDonalds’ Corporation, representatives from Arla Foods and ASDA Stores Ltd, students from Reading University, plus to local farmers. I also obtained appropriate certification to allow me to undertake chainsawing and knapsack spraying, enhancing my estate maintenance capabilities, and complementing existing areas such as maintenance of auto-scrapers and the milking parlour. Similarly, I gained entitlement to driving with a trailer (B+E) during this time. During 2014/2015, I was accepted onto the John Edgar Trust Management Programme, based in Hampshire and Gloucestershire, and have been continuing to develop my management skills and knowledge, in addition to establishing an invaluable network of industry contracts.

Preferences
Availability

Start: 01/08/2016 Finish: 01/01/2020

Preferred region

South West

Type of job

Permanent

Where would you like to work?

Anywhere

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