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InOur Wild Farming Life , Lynn Cassells and Sandra Baer recount their experience as they make Lynbreck Croft — a regenerative Scots farm rooted in local solid food and community . As they build up their farm , Cassells and Baer take new livestock to their land and learn techniques to help them unfeignedly interpret how they can farm in harmony with nature .
While all the animals on Lynbreck Croft taught them of import life history lesson over sentence , Highland Bos taurus were perhaps the most impactful . Not only are these Scottish cattle exceptionally beautiful , but when raise decent they can drastically better the state of our soil and our country .
The chase is an excerption fromOur Wild Farming LifebySandra Baer and Lynn Cassells . It has been adapted for the web .
All exposure by Sandra Angers Blondin .
Highland Cattle: More Than A Hobby
Highland cattle are incredibly hardy beasts that grow a boneheaded shaggy coat in the wintertime to keep them tender in the rough conditions , which they drop out for the summer using trees and queer rocks as their hairbrush to rub and comb out the old haircloth .
They eat a wide range of vegetation , from grasses and wildflowers to shrub and tree leave of absence , and are by nature establish for all weather conditions , enabling them to be outside 365 days of the year . Their beauty and iconic image can often do them a ill service , sometimes receive the connection of being ‘ hobby ’ cattle for ‘ hobby ’ farmers and demoted to being the grimace of brittle bars and advertising campaigns .
However , to us , these animals were much more than just a pretty face , acknowledging their instinctive resiliency and strength and see to it the idol in their suitability to become a part of our team at Lynbreck .
In my old problem with the Borders Forest Trust , I had been fortunate to play a gentleman call Roy Dennis , a virtual giant in the world of preservation and a pioneer of habitat restoration , mammal and bird reintroductions . Roy had previously lived and worked in Abernethy Forest and in 1998 print a paper gentle ‘ The Importance of Traditional Cattle for Woodland Biodiversity in the Scottish Highlands ’ , which we came across in our other Lynbreck day .
He wrote about the potential benefits of keeping oxen that could fill a ecological niche in our natural environmental science , the grandness of dunging for soil health and worm , the creation of dissimilar habitats as a result of their presence and movement through the landscape , and the recycling of plant material through their pasture approach pattern and preferences . Roy made a compelling case for the use of unfearing , native breed cattle in pocket-size number at low densitiesthat would also ultimately supply exceptionally eminent - character bitch that could be commercialise and sell at a premium .
Adopting A Natural Cattle Grazing System
We require to run our Highland cattle in as natural a grazing system as potential , where the plan would be to keep them moving regularly , utilise their instinctive behaviours . This would help to ensure the spread of a fairly even deposit of droppings and urine across the field and , with sturdy kine such as Highlanders , there would be no motive for expensive housing in winter .
We would palliate against the primer coat becoming too broken up and muddy by carrying low-toned brute numbers on a grassland where the works had deep etymon systems , able to give the weight unit of the lighter - framed Highland cattle . And the plan intend avoiding any unneeded soil compaction , a shape due to repeatedly carrying heavy weightiness like great groups of heavy animals or fomite , leading to the O literally being squeeze out of the grunge and rendering the ground lifeless .
In demarcation , our aim was to have light , crumbly , aerated soil that , when the pelting came , could literally soak up water like a sponge , water being an essential natural imagination that we want to store in as many ways as potential for the plants above .
And the most important part would be ensuring that the surface area where the cattle had just grazed would be tolerate sufficient fourth dimension to repose and recover . When a works is crop by an animal , it ask clip to fully regrow , and if it is not given that time and is pasture again , it draws on root reserve vitality to keep going , a process called overgrazing . When this pass repeatedly , the plant will finally become stunted , producing less biomass and it will at last die . Through heedful planning , we could keep off that , help to keep our pasture level-headed and vigorous .
Our obligation would be to oversee those motility , which , in the summertime would mostly be daily , factoring in considerations such as availability and diversity of foraging , pee and shelter , as well as seasonal thing like calving and weaning . This consistent interaction would also give us the opportunity to on a regular basis monitor their grazing wallop , making change to our design when needed , building knowledge and experience as we went .
Our now go - to animal author Fred Provenza claims that herbivores , if give the chance , will crease on up to fifty dissimilar plant species in a single day , based on their demand for specific nutrients and mineral . Our lea had the beginnings of a divers vegetation forage disc for the cattle to pick through and , we hoped in time , their work would help to grow the diversity of what they could take from .
Bale Cattle Grazing: It’s All In The Hay
Throughout our carefully planned summertime grazing , we had been stretching out our available forage for as long as possible , utilise one of the many superpowers of Highland cattle whereby they are able to live on on nutritionally inadequate vegetation and still expand .
But , as autumn turn to winter and the last of the fend dope was grazed , we unwrapped our first hay bale , unleash the warming smell of summer Grass and wildflowers and taking armful out to our fold who were protrude to voice their discontentedness with the pasturage scraps left in the flying field .
Ronnie , in particular , would bet at us with immense discontentedness . She ’s always had a healthy appetence , her frame perhaps carrying a mite more weight than the others as she certainly enjoy her solid food , yet another property that just became part of Ronnie . They all pucker in with such delectation as we stood back , check them exhaust every last stalk before collapsing in tons onto the hard , crisp ground , manducate the chew with utter contentment . It was from this point on , when we watched them lie in down with full stomach that we affectionally referred to them as the ‘ clod ’ .
We began to use our twice daily hay allocation to continue our regular cattle movement , feeding them in different locations , but this clock time in much large paddocks so that they would always have access code to shelter from trees should a winter storm arrive in . Because the kine would n’t be in any one place for a farseeing fourth dimension , this help to annul our ground getting muddy and compacted . Any trash of hay that they did n’t corrode would simply break down , feeding the soil as reposition seedheads were trodden into the ground , planting them to sprout raw growing in fountain .
We also started to experiment with a proficiency bid bale grazing , a tactic of just put a hay bale in a smear in the field that we ’d place as needing a bit of a fecundity boost , take off the netting that holds the layers in place and letting the cattle eat from it now . Once prepared , we would bring the cattle to the bale , a time of obvious excitement as the boys would head - posterior it or the girls would dig their horns flat into the side , sometimes flip the Basle , before they settled down to fiesta .
It would take our congregation between two to three days to finish their ‘ all you may exhaust ’ snack bar where the destruction result was a prominent circular matt of hay a few inches thick . We had to fight the urge to rake the remnant hay off , subordinate doubts sow by others that the ‘ waste ’ would ‘ put out ’ the grass in the summer , knowing that we had to entrust this ‘ liquidate ’ hay with patches of droppings to break down into the dirt .
The following summer , these fleck were transform into lush and divers forage , buzz with louse life-time as piffling field vole utilised the novel back to move around their territory . Through this very unproblematic technique , we were slowly starting to increase the amount of diverse grazing for our Highlanders , now visualise ‘ hay waste ’ as soil food and a trickle investment into the prospering bank of grease .
Recommended Reads
5 Environmental benefit of Regenerative Grazing
The Power of Traditional Herding & Grazing : bring Back Balance
Our Wild Farming Life
adventure on a Scottish Highland Croft
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