We had a visit from the Reed family (Whitestone Dexters, the breeders of our cows) today. We talked through winter cow-keeping, dealing with mud and ensuring they get enough to eat through to AI and the absolute joys of calving. It was great that they could see how the cows were after three months of living here and we are happy to report that they declared them in tip top condition. The winter is going to be hard and the mud will get worse but the manuring this field (bottom 3-acre) will get will actually do the ground the world of good. Our plans are to keep the cows on here as long as we can, only transfering them back to the 4-acre at the point we think the poaching might get too severe. This field can then have a bit of a rest for the remainder of the winter/ early spring. It would be nice to think we might have a big freeze and the ground will become hard... wishful thinking in the mild South West we are sure!
We are hoping to give the top 3-acre a good rest too as at some stage (maybe after Christmas), we plan to move the alpacas into the 4-acre field too (this is our driest field). That will just leave the goats on the top 3-acre. They spend most of their time in their field shelter and of course go into the barn at night so they don’t go out much on the pasture anyway. This top 3-acre field is the one we hope to turn the lambs and kids out onto and so the less activity on here until spring, the better.
It’s a plan... and like all good plans will no doubt need tweaking as we have to adapt to unforeseen circumstances but it does feel good to have one in place that hopefully will serve all our livestock equally well!!!