Apr 14
The Official Turn Out
Posted in Livestock by David Wilson
Turning out is a great spring event and the animals always race around the fields like newborns again. It's a lovely sight to see a sedate dairy cow suddenly gambolling and leaping about like a baby calf again!
The cows will be turned out for a few hours at a time in the next week or two to begin with but we do still bring them in at night and ensure their smooth transition by gradually switching their diet from winter silage to summer grass.
Much of the beef cows have finished calving and are already turned out because we're always trying to take advantage of any nice dry weather. Although there isn't really much growing outside for them we're still turning them out with their calves to get a bit of sun on their backs.
Meanwhile, we are spiking and harrowing the grassland. This gets the pasture all perked up by raking all the dead matter, levelling out last year's cowpats and letting air into the top. We try to do all the grassland - there's about 1,000 acres to do - and it's ongoing work through to the middle of April at least.
