All the cows at Greystone Farm are safely in their winter housing. At Sandfield Farm the young heifers are in the sheds but the older dry cows are out on the field enjoying the fodder beet. The crisp frosty weather is fantastic for Christmas break walks and we have had a lot of people walking over the farms on the public footpaths. The frosty weather has meant that our contractor could get on to the field with his heavy tractor at 4.00 am this morning in order to drill the wheat. A later start would have meant him finishing the field as the ground softened which would have damaged the seed bed.

The difficulty which arises in the cold weather is the water troughs and water pipes freezing up. We find that whilst the air is cold it is also a dry air which means the animals tend to drink more than on a wet winters day. My children came out and helped break the ice on the concrete water trough, which they loved doing. In the last year we have replaced many of the plastic or metal water troughs with concrete ones. We found that the metal water troughs don’t last many years and the plastic ones can be easily knocked over by the cows if the water level drops. After milking in the summer time the cows drink so much water that the trough is almost empty and takes an hour or so to refill. Our cows produce about 26 litres of milk a day and in order to produce that much milk, they need to drink about 90 litres of water a day!