Another lovely day, we are having a fair few amidst the odd spot of rain or early morning mist. Today’s sunshine quota was actually pretty high and the sunset was lush.
Our final load of woodchip arrived today - we reckon we have had a good 13 cubic metres delivered and around 6 or 7 of those are now in the cow area, hence to be known as the 'Cow Pad'!!. We hope we have managed to fill the whole area to a depth of at least 11/12cms. Whether this will be enough remains to be seen... The woodchipped area is nine by seven metres with the housing covering an additional nine by three: thus 90 square metres in total. Compared to a whole field, this is a very small space BUT it more than covers legal requirements for ‘housing’ cows plus our plans are to let them out from time to time when the ground is dry and/or frozen. Soil Association guidelines (the most generous) state that cows up to 350 kilos (which is what ours are) should have four square metres of lying space (i.e. indoors) per head. The calves are obviously not fully grown but even allowing a full four metres for them, we would need 20 in total and we have 27. Additional space (for standing around/ eating/ chilling) can be inside or outside and the requirements are for at least three square metres per cow. Our outside woodchipped area is a whopping 63 square metres so we are definitely covered on that one.
The mats for inside the shelter arrive tomorrow and we then need to get the hurdles and a gate in place.
Completion edges ever closer!!