News
Ashott Barton News
There is never a dull day on the farm.
I’ve heard it said that you can farm for years and still you will have days that show you something you’ve never seen before. A lot of what happens is interesting and I think worth sharing, so here you will find an assortment of articles about life on the farm.
Below are the most recent happenings. You can also read articles from the past in Old News and in Tales from the Field are some general stories about life here.
In Memory of Millennium
Millennium died on Tuesday, 1st March 2011. He died, as he has lived, with our love and his dignity intact. He was in the main barn, as he always is at calving time, his first calf of the year, little Lillibet, running around with his first grandson of the year and his cows close by. Jeremy and I sat by him; he fell asleep with a sedative and then a final injection from Tom, our vet.
Millennium was born on December 18th 1998. He came here on the 9th of September 2000. The Millennium bull, who has left a legacy of cows and bulls and given me the joy of a friendship with a unique being. I see his daughters and see him reflected in them.
Semper Fidelis – Always Faithful, describes him to perfection
The Bull Goes In
April 21st – Time to start the cycle again and put the Bull in with the Cows so they will calve again next winter.
This year it is rather different for us as it is not Millennium who is the main Bull but rather his grand-son Essington Best Man (we call him Boy because his still is a young-un). Maybe next year he will be the man!
Boy has gone in with 7 of our cows. He will have more shortly.
Calving 2011
Its that time of the year again when we spend our days and nights keeping constant vigil as the cows get ready to birth. Our focus is to predict when they going to calve and be there to assist if needed, but as any Devon breeder will say this is non-trivial task.
Greaving Cows
It is not just us who feel the huge loss of Millennium from the herd. The cows are also clearly affected by his death. It is most noticeable in the cows who were particularly close to him. He always had a group of what we called his “favorites” and it is those who’s behaviour has altered.
Spring Spawn
These last few months have been very dry and left little standing water which has resulted in one small pond being almost filled with frog spawn.
I’ve been looking after them (preventing them washing over the water fall and stopping Gem from swimming with them.
2011 Calving Complete!
April 2nd – A great sense of relief as now all the cows have calved. We had 18 to calve this year, 15 mature cows and 3 heifers. All was well.
Last year we had a number of difficult deliveries caused largely by a poor choice in Bull. We have been rather spoiled by Millennium and were used to his calves just popping out. It’s all in the shoulders!! The Bull for Millenniums daughters bought at great expense was a great disaster. Huge calves leading to death and grief so this year has been a huge relief.
This year we have more of a mixture of calves than usual as we (as an experiment) put some of the cows to an Angus bull. This was mainly to gives these cows who had trouble before a more easy calving.
2010 Snow
A beautiful nightmare
We all love the white stuff and its wonderful to go walking in, but when you have to work in it and lives are dependent on now frozen resources it can get a bit trying.
Hay Making 2010
A misnomer! Not one single blade of hay was made this year, its all been wrapped as hayledge.
For the last few years we have managed to make some hey but this year we made 100% hay-ledge. The ‘old boys’ said you need 5 days of really hot sunny weather to make good quality hay. Good Hay is more than just dried grass, mechanically drying by turning it will enable you to get dried grass, but nutrients will have been lost each time a blade of grass is bent. So without a single window of opportunity to make good hay we’ve opted to make the best quality hay-ledge we can and preserve the nutrients by wrapping it.
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