All About Trees

The month we travelled to Grantown on Spey to take part in a Soil Association’s convention to learn about the use of trees as fodder for our cattle.

The meeting was extremely interesting with a brilliant lecture from Dr Lindsay Whistance, amongst others, about the utility of trees in raising cows. The use of trees as shelter can regulate the body temperature of cattle therefore reducing the amount of food necessary. Studies shows that a 1 degree drop in body temperature of a cow is followed by a 2% increase in food. We also learned about the palatability of plants and their mineral benefits, this is extremely important as it will give us the opportunity to reduce the need to bring in minerals to our organic system. Trees can also provide feed during winter month.

As the harvest is almost complete on the farm we can now look forward to counting the partridge broods on the estate. Because the fields open up, we have been able to complete our little dung middens on grass margins and beetle banks and wild birds covers. The ideas is to provide habitat for dung beetles and such others insects which are very important in the high protein content necessary in raising insectivore chicks.