At this time of year we aim to be completely prepared for winter. All winter feed is in, water supplies are working and insulated against the coming frost, shed clean and tidy. For once I think we can tick all of those boxes. We put off the day when the herd comes indoors until the […]
Neospora is a protozoan parasite that requires both cattle and dogs to complete its life cycle. The dog eats placental or foetal material infected with the protozoan, it then sheds oocysts (the eggs) in its poo which persist in the environment for a long time. Cattle then graze an area where the dog poo has […]
Let’s be positive. Sometimes difficult but I’m happy when I can look at a job that I’m struggling with in 30 degrees during July, and that I had thought I’d sort out in May, in a positive light. Last December we cleared a very badly silted pond and the result has been excellent so far. […]
We recently had to have a cow put down after she broke a leg; not a great Saturday night that one! The financial loss added to the distress at losing an animal we have come to know well, over the last four years. Of course once the most immediate problem of disposing of her body was […]
When we sold three Red Poll heifers to the Wildlife Trut last summer, they went to Flitwick Moor to help keep their vegetation under control. We were told then that they would be spending the winter at Pegsdon Hills Nature reserve, but we haven’t had a chance to visit them since. We heard (through some WT […]
We are pleased to offer more of our grass-fed, Red Poll beef for sale, fresh from the lush pastures of Gravenhurst. If you’d like to give our beef a try (or order more if you are one of our many loyal customers), please get an order to us by Monday 13 October. Beef will be […]
Last week, we sold three, year old heifers to the Wildlife Trust in Bedfordshire and they are now enjoying life on Flitwick Moor, an intriguing wet woodland nature reserve to the north-east of Flitwick. This is a place where, in the past, peat was cut and iron-rich spring water sold as a blood tonic. The cattle will help to keep […]
As usual, we fail to predict the arrival of our first calf. After ten years of doing this we still fumble around for some kind of certainty to replace the ‘well sometime soon’ when asked exactly when the calves will arrive.Last Sunday morning Alan arrived (name suggested by daughter; don’t know why). A sturdy bull […]
Rain. It’s feeling very British now; cold but not freezing, gloomy, very wet underfoot. Short days getting shorter. The cattle seem pretty weather resistant but I always feel for them as conditions deteriorate at this time of year. Someone once told me that cattle can cope with very cold conditions as long as they are […]
Turns out I was wrong about the supply of barn swallows and house martins in a post last week. I had thought we’d exhausted this year’s batch and with it the warmer days of summer.After some significant amount of walking about after calves, I managed to get all the herd into our field called ‘Wassledine’. They had […]