Sunday 28th May 2017
Herd sorting!!
Today we reunited Thyme and her calf with the rest of the herd. We expected the usual argy-bargy and re-establishing of pecking orders and as the pictures show, we weren't disappointed! It was all fairly low-key compared to what we have seen and we are pretty sure that we are now back to the original order: Parsley, Sage, then Thyme.
The best part of it was Thyme's calf running, running, running as she realised she now had the full run of the 4-acre field. Her tearing around slightly dissipated the shoving and pushing and after no more than 10/15 minutes, peace was restored! Wonderful!!
We are now planning a bit of a move around as we want the cows to go into the top 3-acre field which is full of lush grass (the goats cannot keep up). They have never grazed this field and we need them to as part of our parasitic control. We will then put the goats into the 4-acre which whilst not as full of grass is OVERFLOWING with browsings from the hedges and so will be perfect for them.
The sheep and alpacas will stay where they are in the bottom 3-acre. Here, the grass is growing just a little bit faster than they can eat it... perfect, for now!!
Then… in about 2 weeks, we are going to get the 4-acre sprayed as the docks are now way too prolific and left unchecked, will outgrow the grass. At that point we will have to take the goats out and not put anything back in for a week whilst the chemical we have used 'does its stuff'.
At some stage we will do a swap between the cows and the sheep/alpacas so that the sheep can also enjoy some of the lushness of the top 3-acre and then in due course, when the 4-acre is growing well again, we will pop the cows back in and start to strip graze!! Phew!!
And all this needs to be managed alongside 2nd vaccinations and ear tagging for the lambs and kids, castrations for the ram-lambs and our bull-calf and then in three weeks, shearing!!!
Planning is all!!
We are now planning a bit of a move around as we want the cows to go into the top 3-acre field which is full of lush grass (the goats cannot keep up). They have never grazed this field and we need them to as part of our parasitic control. We will then put the goats into the 4-acre which whilst not as full of grass is OVERFLOWING with browsings from the hedges and so will be perfect for them.
Then… in about 2 weeks, we are going to get the 4-acre sprayed as the docks are now way too prolific and left unchecked, will outgrow the grass. At that point we will have to take the goats out and not put anything back in for a week whilst the chemical we have used 'does its stuff'.
At some stage we will do a swap between the cows and the sheep/alpacas so that the sheep can also enjoy some of the lushness of the top 3-acre and then in due course, when the 4-acre is growing well again, we will pop the cows back in and start to strip graze!! Phew!!
And all this needs to be managed alongside 2nd vaccinations and ear tagging for the lambs and kids, castrations for the ram-lambs and our bull-calf and then in three weeks, shearing!!!
Planning is all!!