Ever wondered what happens to the wood thrown out in domestic skips? Our local skip company drops it off at both Greystone and Sandfield Farms. Once the skip hire company picks up the full skip, the material in the skip is sorted and where ever possible recycled. Some of the wood collected is turned into wood chips and then bought to our farms to be used for cow bedding.

The wood chip is dry, soft, cheaper than straw and creates less bulky farm yard manure. At this stage we are just experimenting with it. When the cows are on straw bedding they eat some of the straw which helps fill them up and adds fibre into their diet. On wood chip the cows don’t have the straw to eat and are therefore eating more silage, which is expensive. The other possible problem with wood chip, is that straw based farm yard manure breaks down well, helped along by the farmers’ friend, the worm. We are not sure if the wood chip based farm yard manure is going to break down so well. Time will tell.