I was chatting to a friend recently, I hadn’t seen her in months and she commented that I had kept my book quiet. Had I really? Surely I had told everyone. But then I realised that between finishing the boarding school book, writing the memoir, editing it and then into calving and the long winter, that I’ve been living the life of a hermit really. I’ve talked about it on social media but I haven’t been out much nor have [...]
Do cows know when they are related? Do mothers and daughters stay close? What about sisters? We’ve often noticed cows that are twins grazing close together. Sometimes cows will form a mother and daughter bond even if they aren’t related. Lucy, one of our favourite cows, was lying in her cubicle recently (yes, she has her own cubicle and no other cow dares to try and lie there) and on either side of her were two of her daughters, Lucy [...]
The sun came out last week and the clouds disappeared for a few days. The temperature even got to 20 degrees Celsius. After a long winter and near despair with heavy rain the previous Monday, the drying wind and the sunshine were welcomed by all. Unfortunately, we’ve had showery days too.
Lou has been accompanying me on my morning [...]
It’s more of a comparison than a tale but like a lot of dairy farmers, we’re constantly trying to improve the quality of our herd and we’ve been working on improving milk solids for a number of years through breeding, milk recording and grass management. When the milk recording information comes, we’re looking at milk volumes for the individual cows but also their fat and protein percentages. Before we started milk recording, the ‘best cows’ were great on volume but [...]
One of the things I love about farming is that the vast majority of days tend to be different. They will have elements that are similar. We milk cows for over 300 days a year, in spring the calves are fed morning and evening, in winter all animals need to be foddered but other work tends to vary such as tasks like fencing, spreading fertiliser, spreading dung, grass measuring, dosing cattle, mowing grass, paperwork. If the sun is shining, it [...]
