Archived News

17th October 2009

All the maize grown this year is goings to make silage.  Contractors from Sussex arrived at the crack of sparrows yesterday and began cutting soon after the drizzle stopped falling.

The forage harvesters made easy work of 30 acres in a day; creating 600 tonnes of silage.  The maize stem and cob are chopped  into tiny pieces, quickly filling the silage trailers which yesterday transported the silage to a silage ‘pit’ at Churchfield Farm, Gomshall.

The pit is created with three sides of timber and is above ground, it’s not a pit or hole in the ground.  The first pit is now full and has been sheeted over with plastic to completely seal the fodder from air; this allows anaerobic bacteria to work on preserving the silage which will then be fed to cattle over the next couple of years.

The coming week will see a lot of cattle sorting and moving to new pasture.  We have been grateful of recent rainfall as the previous weeks of drought caused a severe lack of grass, not an ideal situation for cattle.

Cattle brought to Churchfield to be electronically identified.

Last week, 169 cattle from Netley, Albury and Coomb Farm were gathered at Churchfield to be sorted and electronically identified (EID) before being taken over to Farnham to be over-wintered.  The EID is similar to microchipping a dog or cat, however in cattle it enables us to keep immediately accessable information on cattle weight gain.

Last year We over-wintered cattle at Matthew Luard’s farm in Farnham as he had empty cattle buildings to rent and he undertakes feeding and care of our livestock.  The cattle built up their frame over the winter months and then returned home for summer grazing.