Our ground is most definitely frozen now and as such, today we decided to let the cows out of their Cow Pad and back into the 4-acre field. We had a very calm exit out of the woodchip area and then suddenly it was as though they realized how much freedom they had as firstly Caraway took off, closely followed by Sage and then Parsley and Thyme The pleasure to be had watching cows race around like lunatics after a winter of being confined is not to be under-estimated. As they do the same when they are moved from one field to the next, we have seen this behaviour a few times now and it never fails to impress!
Grass eating then began in earnest because as well as letting them out, we also opened up the whole field so there is plenty of space for them and the sheep and alpacas. This meant that the top half, which had been shut off to the sheep and alpacas for a good four of so weeks, was particularly attractive with its ‘untouched-for-a-while’, albeit short grass.
We are due to get some snow at the end of this week so quite how this will affect things remains to be seen but, for now, the cows are loving being back out in their field and we now have extra time each day due to NOT having to muck them out!!!