Catch up with Chris

Hi Chris from Moos on Thames here. 

Most of the cows are now housed for winter. The milking cows are in full time. They get fed silage twice a day, this is to copy the rumen cycles of when they are out grazing getting two fresh areas of grass a day.

Even with the wet weather carrying on into the autumn we managed to keep grazing into November so we are in a good place with silage stocks. We now have had thirty acres flooded for a month now. And with the rain continuing to fall I don’t see the floods going down anytime soon. We will have to see in the spring how much damage has been done the those fields. But I am expecting to have to reseed some of it, even if it’s just broadcasting on some seed and letting the cows trample it in to get some productivity out of those fields. 

The spring born calves that have been out grazing all summer have now returned home and are in a shed. These are getting grass silage and some fodder beets (a big root crop a bit like a swede) to give them some extra energy to help them grow. The in calf heifers that will calve in march are still out bale grazing. They get a daily allocation of grass and silage bales that I put in place in the summer. They will be housed in the new year so they can get used to the cubicles. 

I will start to dry off (stop milking) some of the milking cows in December. This is where they have a two month break from milking. Most of the cows will be dried off in December and January. But don’t worry there will still be plenty of milk in the vending machine over the winter. This is why I created a small summer calving group that I can milk through the winter. The economics of producing milk greatly increases over winter with the added feeding, bedding and machinery costs. Nothing compares to the quality of grazed grass through the growing season. 

In vending machine news, we now have organic herd chocolate bars in the machine alongside the organic herd drinking chocolate flakes and mature and extra mature cheddars. We have also had a software update on the milk vending machine which has stream lined the process. We will be having more updates within the next few weeks.

If you have any questions about the farm or vending machine, please email moosonthames@gmail.com

Chris Freeth