Have you tried our podcast yet?

While the core of the business is nutrition, followed by CowSignals® training & mobility scoring (RoMS) for a bit of fun, with a friend of mine, I also have a monthly podcast. If you are reading this via the website, I expect you have already seen this, but have you tried it? We’ve had great feedback from listeners who keep telling us to keep it up, so why don’t you give it a try?  Either directly via the website or ask the kids/grandkids for help so you can listen via your phone via sites like Spotify!

With the December episode of the podcast due later this month, the podcast will have been running for eighteen months, with a new episode each month on a wide variety of different dairy related subjects. One month it could be nutrition focused, the next genetics and the month following making better use of your fertiliser!

The seed of the idea was formed about fifteen months before the first episode was released when, with our then employers, we hosted a few webinars entitled, “Dairying around the World”, which can still be found on YouTube. These had been put together to provide some entertainment and thought during the then COVID lockdowns. We spoke about our own experiences of dairying in different parts of the world.

Looking on different platforms it became apparent that there weren’t many diary focused podcasts available, certainly not from here in the UK, with only a few available from overseas, but time and life got in the way and so the spark of an idea was left to glow in the embers waiting for a time when it could be reignited.

Leap forward to May 2022 and Neil & I recorded our initial episodes, still available as Season 0, to test the idea and see what the response was to our initial musings, given that there were now several different, primarily commercial, dairy focused podcasts available here in the UK. The arrival of the podcast had truly begun!

Neil, I think it was fair to say, was a little surprised and shocked when I rang him and said we were going to do this, as it had only been talked about at this point, never thinking it was going to happen!

While the initial recordings were to test the idea of how easy it was to do, it was also to allow people listening to the podcast a chance to know a bit more about us and our backgrounds, and hopefully realise that we weren’t talking complete rubbish having both spent a lifetime around cows.

We then debated if we went ahead, the frequency of the episodes, was it to be monthly, fortnightly, or weekly as we had a list of over sixty potential topics before we even began!

We decided on monthly so that it didn’t interfere with other commitments, and always intended for there to be a guest/s on each month to talk about the topic even if either of us knew quite a bit about that subject as it’s our role to ask the questions, and learn with you, not to preach to you!

We always intended to try and make the podcast relaxed, ideally with people we already knew, and give it the feel of you, the listener, listening in to some old mates having a conversation around the kitchen table (as it is recorded around my kitchen table!), or even down the pub!

We wanted you to be able to listen and then think about what you were doing at home on the farm and wonder if there was something you picked up on an episode that could mean you would do something that little bit better at home than you already were. We would consider that a win as we didn’t want to be preaching to you, telling you how you should be doing things as everyone’s farm and situation if different so one size doesn’t fit all. We thought some of the more commercially focused podcasts were beginning to do this.

We were doing this for fun, on sometimes some serious subjects, but wanted you to have fun and learn with us. We always enjoy having that laugh out loud moment as we record an episode.

Usually when we record an episode most guests are a little weary and apprehensive of what they are about to do, with a microphone put in front of them, but hopefully, because we are relaxed in what we are doing, this rubs of on our guest/s and by the end I know all are loving it and would quite happily do it again!

Over the last eighteen months we’ve covered a wide variety of subjects covering nutrition, genetics, fertiliser, nitrogen cracking, recycling, carbon sequestration and mental health. All important subjects. We like having the wide range as it keeps us up to date on different subjects, and we appreciate that not every episode is for everyone.

One thing we have found though is for both of us it has created some great conversation points when we visited a farm, particularly a new client as when the subject turns to a particular topic we can say, “We’ve done a podcast on that!”, and this then creates further conversation!

We’ve been surprised with where people are listening to us, with downloads from every continent across the world, except Antarctica! It’s been some of the fun seeing a download from a place you’ve never heard of and then looking up where in the world it is!

The internet can be an amazing place sometimes, to think there are people around the world that listen to our musings, let alone here in the UK when our original plan was to keep things focused to people and subjects, we knew here in the South West of England.

As mentioned, before we’ve had some great feedback from listeners and were only told this week about how our podcast was discussed at board level, from one of our podcast guests and how they were congratulated on their participation because the board felt it had come across really well.

So, we must be doing something right! I say this as well because since we started, I’ve never looked back at that original list of sixty ideas because we know people, or see articles, or ideas or have people give us contacts of names that they think might make a great podcast. I came back from this year’s Dairy Show at the Bath & West Showground, with half a dozen people that had said they would be happy to be on a podcast, to discuss their chosen subject!

My biggest problem now is trying to fit everyone in as we’ve probably got agreement from people for the next eighteen months’ worth of podcasts! The difficulty sometimes is trying to make the timing of each episode relevant to the subject, i.e., there is no point talking silage additive in the middle of winter, it needed to be in the spring.

That doesn’t mean we aren’t open to ideas, so if you have one that you’d like us to try and record an episode about then please let us know as we’d be happy to follow up on it and try and find someone we know, or ask a contact if they know anyone that could talk about the subject, because again if it helps us learn something new then we are all for it!

So, to all those that have listened, thank you, and if you haven’t yet then what’s stopping you? Both Neil & I have enjoyed the last eighteen months (and also a thank you to Sarah) with some great subjects and I hope you’ll enjoy the coming eighteen months!

Each new podcast is released on, or near to, the 15^th of the month at midnight UK time. Subscribe via your podcast provider and it will be there ready for you to listen to when you wake in the morning (unless you are like our next guest when it will be late morning their time before its released).

If you would like to discuss anything in this article further, please contact FAR registered Independent Dairy & Beef Nutritionist, CowSignals® Master, RoMS Mobility Scorer & Podcast Creator Andrew Jones on 07534 684782 or click the "Contact Us Now" button below.