Despite some fairly wet weather this last week or so, the land is not fairing that badly at the moment. We are in a better position than last year in that our IBC tanks are collecting water from the roofs of all our field shelters but, more importantly, they are taking the excess away into the nearest ditches and/or hedges. This is not only helping the fields themselves but also the actual shelters. The cow field shelters in particular are nowhere near as wet inside as they were last year where in places, we had water soaking up from under the matting and reaching the straw – we also have different matting this year too which helps. In the poultry area, we have an IBC tank on one side of the stables and trenches dug out alongside the other and both these measures mean we no longer have water seeping into the stables and coming up over the concrete. The best news of all though is that because of all this, we are using HALF the straw we were this time last year, just 5 bales a week across all the livestock, as oppose to 10. That’s a saving of £15 a week which is not an inconsiderable amount when you consider the cows will be in their winter pad for a good four to five months and, as the photo shows, we do like to straw them down well!!!