The cows have now been in day and night for two months. They came in after the summer drought in poor condition, but amazingly have put on condition on their current expensive diet, which comprises of grass silage, brewers grains and fodder beet in ring feeders.

My new automatic three-way shedding gate has really come into its own, allowing us to selectively feed the low yielding, the heifers and those that have calved and the AI separately. The cows have come bulling very well since we started serving, but we are getting more repeats than I would like.

Should we, or, shouldn’t we?

When Countryfile rang wanting to come and film inmid-December, their first question was: 'Will the cows be out at grass?'

'Yes' I blithely replied.

And on the morning of filming I let the cows out. They duly filmed the cows coming in for milking in the afternoon on 17 December, which I felt was a brilliant advertisement for the low-cost production of cows at grass.

What has amazed me most of all is the amount of grass growth we have had since the cows came in, leaving me with very good residuals. Despite some rain, the ground is hard, with hardly a cut in it. MThis leaves me a dilemma – should I turn the cows out now and graze off or wait until February when incessant rain could put these fields under eight inches of water?

You have already seen photos of these fields with the grandchildren sailing on a raft in February, so the aim is now to get one grazing from each paddock and some of the silage grounds, leaving some for regrowth. I don’t know what the neighbours will think of me, since around here the traditional turning out date is 5 May.

Ration

The ration for the cows is now grass, and in the ring feeders, four parts grass silage, three parts maize silage, two parts fodder beet, one part brewers grains. Steve, who feeds the cows with a front end loader, keeps muttering about a mixer wagon.

My response that we are a low-cost production herd, is countered by 'you ain’t low cost with all these feeds you’re buying in!'

Unfortunately, he is correct, but, expensive as the diet is, it has put condition on the cows; they are bulling well and producing a reasonable milk yield. One point about going into the autumn calving period with thin cows was no milk fever at calving, but now the cows going dry for the spring calving group are too fat for my liking.

Oh and by the way, BBC Countryfile with the Collingborn herd is showing on 20 January.