Our very own calf village is very full, with between 12 and 19 on individual buckets – they are on their own within sight of other calves until they are strong enough to feed amongst the next stage of 5 calves
Any slow drinkers or more gentle calves are kept back until they are strong enough to join their fellow friends
When we walk down with the buckets a good sign of a healthy calf is when they pop out of their hutch, run around waiting for the warm milk.
We then have 9 pens of 5 which are fed milk twice a day as well as ad-lib dry food, plenty of our very own wheat straw and clean water- the drums are having to be cleaned out every morning as the crows use them as wash and dunk buckets.
We had a very constructive couple of days last month moving cattle around – it is a bit like moving up a class at school ;and like children some calves love the change and run around in the bigger pens and others look on with trepidation!
The cows are still milking well the sheds are airy with plenty of air flow
Mike has been installing some new water tanks as a couple were acting similar to colanders.
To aid air flow in the dry cow yard the team has taken the Yorkshire boarding out.
All the little tweaks we are doing will gave to be watched when the rain does start!
We have 3 cuts of silage in the clamps – it has all been of good quality
Starting with the first cut of grass at the end of April.
This season has been a couple of weeks early throughout and we are now looking at the maize- which is the only green thing growing in the fields at the moment, which is 4-6 weeks ahead of a normal growing year.
With the milk price below the cost of producing it, we are constantly looking at all the costs on the farm, not to just scrimp and save,
make do and mend
But to be even more inventive with the resources we have on farm
As always we are up for a challenge