In The Dairy - Doddington Dairy

The White Stuff !

Unfortunately , the title of this post is not the "White Stuff" that dairy farmers like to talk about . the snow is still here , and it's now packed hard on all the yards , in scenes that are just identical to the one's earlier in the year . I do however think we have coped better this time round (despite the obvious shed incidents). The forecast for the coming week is not that encouraging either , with more snow forecast . Still all our girls are inside , and apart from a few frozen pipes , it's business as usual. We have a neighbours sheep on our land at the moment , and I can't remember when they would last have actually grazed some grass. they have been living off hay and silage now , and generally raking the hedge backs for shelter and food.

The cows have been milking amazingly well considering all the upset and the cold , obvioulsy got the ration about right. We will be drying cows off next month ready for calving in March/April , so hopefully the workload in the parlour should get less for a few weeks anyway.

Today we are going to take down the remaining section of the feed passage roof , as it is basically unsafe now. This will either go smoothly or take us forever and a day. I have visions of it being like a Fred Dibnah type event and when it's ready to fall , I will sound a horn , run like hell , look up and say "Did you like that ? "

Bad Start to the Week !

The above picture is the damage done with the sheer weight of snow on our feed passage roof this week . It's fair to say it wasn't the newest roof on the farm ,but to have it come down has just been the biggest hassle we have experienced for a long time . It took ALL day to clear up the mess , and the remainder of the shed roof is now being supported by props along the length . Today there has been a fairly hefty thaw , so long may that continue. The wintery weather of the last week has played havoc on the work load of the farm , with even the simplest task taking twice as long, not to mention the fact that there has been little or no staff around , as none live on the farm.
Hopefully we can get on better in the week to come,
On a brighter note , Chloanne Goldwyn Gracious calved this week , and she had a heifer calf , Chloanne Jeeves Gracious . It's an absolute cracker of a calf and I'll hopefully put some photo's of her on here soon.