Sunday 4th December 2016
Moving the cattle?
We are starting to think that the time may have come to move the cows out of the 3-acre field. Dexters are cows that are traditionally left outside all year round because they don’t damage/poach the ground as much as larger cattle but the 3-acre is definitely now poached in front of their field shelter. Plus, even though we move the hay trolley every day, where the cows stand around it to eat, this has led to some muddy patches developing there too. At the moment the ground is still hard due to the below ‘0’ degrees nighttime temperatures we have been getting, but we are now set for some much milder weather and even without rain, this will make the land softer again and almost definitely see the return of some of that mud.
The other issue is the potential difficulty of us having to carry the hay and straw across the top 3-acre field to get to the cows. In places this is rather squelchy too. (We can use our 2 wheeled trolley but wheeling that across wet land is rather problematic).
Land does recover, grass is actually quite hard to kill but if land gets too poached, even the toughest grass won't re-grow!
Once they are in the 4-acre, we are aware that with more bad weather, this field could become poached too. To this end we have decided (probably) to set up the shelters in the Collecting pen for them with a deep layer of woodchip in front and to have that as a 'all-weather' area.
There is however the issue of the ‘muck’. At the moment we clean out any cowpats from the field shelter on a daily basis. Some days there aren’t that many because the cows have not spent much time in there. If we pen them in the Collecting pen, we will be clearing up a lot more cowpats and that will mean having to find another site for what will become a VERY quick-growing muck heap: we currently have three in the chicken paddock and one in the garden on the site of David’s courgette-patch-to-be and all are pretty full!!
We do have the option of housing them inside the barn but this has HUGE implications for the goats.
As with many of our decisions just now, the weather will help us decide when and what to do!!
Once they are in the 4-acre, we are aware that with more bad weather, this field could become poached too. To this end we have decided (probably) to set up the shelters in the Collecting pen for them with a deep layer of woodchip in front and to have that as a 'all-weather' area.
There is however the issue of the ‘muck’. At the moment we clean out any cowpats from the field shelter on a daily basis. Some days there aren’t that many because the cows have not spent much time in there. If we pen them in the Collecting pen, we will be clearing up a lot more cowpats and that will mean having to find another site for what will become a VERY quick-growing muck heap: we currently have three in the chicken paddock and one in the garden on the site of David’s courgette-patch-to-be and all are pretty full!!
We do have the option of housing them inside the barn but this has HUGE implications for the goats.
As with many of our decisions just now, the weather will help us decide when and what to do!!