Mrs Down's Diary

Last year we lost some of the calves to coccidiosis. An infection of the gut. It was hard to spot that there was anything wrong with the calves at first, but then , when they failed to thrive and we brought in the vet, there was little we could do at that stage to treat the condition effectivley.

This year, forewarned, forearmed and we have drenched the calves once already this year when they were in the fold yard, much smaller and far easier to catch.

Now it is not a matter of simply moving them from one section of the yard to a smaller container area, but of co-ercing them out of a large field into a fairly large containment area and then, and here is where the fun really starts, into a crush. Three at a time for good measure.

The mobile cattle crush was carried over from the farm on the fork lift into the collecting area that has been fenced off between two fields and made into a corral. Within this corral is a sectioned off area in the form of a long passage, concreted over so we are not slurping around in the mud when conditions are wet.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette May 13