Donald Millar, the official assessor for the AgriScot Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year, sponsored by Ice Robotics, has chosen the top four for 2017.
Each farm will receive an inspection during October, and the final accolade will be announced at AgriScot on Wednesday 15th November.
Donald had a very difficult task of selecting the top four out of the top twenty purely from performance details such as calving age, calving index, somatic cell count, yields and longevity.
All the data was assessed anonymously, i.e. without seeing business names or addresses.
Donald is now looking forward to visiting the farms to study everything from calf rearing, sire selection, practical management techniques, feeding and nutrition programmes and to view happy and contented cows.
The top four farms in alphabetical order are:
A Colquhoun Ltd, Dendoldrum, Inverbervie.
Wm. Hamilton & Son, Meldrum, Blairdrummond, Stirling.
KSH Farmers, Kennetsideheads, Eccles, Kelso.
T & A Wadsworth, Big Balcraig, Whauphill, Newton Stewart.
Average performance figures for the top four herds are 725 cows, 11387 litres in 305 days, calving age 24 months, calving index 380 days and somatic cell count 121.
