[Intro]
The situation of the farm is on a slight height and there's a little river running
about maybe 200 yards from this farm so we have to be very careful that there's
no incidents of pollution because water runs down the hill and if anything
gets into that water on the farm it is inevitability going to end up in the water course.
If it ends up in the water of course it's going to cause pollution to
prevent contamination of water courses and certain areas where the land round
it is vulnerable we do establish a buffer zone where we fence off a little
area right beside a stream just to make sure that cattle don't tramp the soil in
to the water, if soil goes in to water that takes the oxygen out of it and it
causes potential pollution as well as eroding the banks of the stream.
Certain fields and so on cattle tend to go into the rivers for a drink
so we establish water troughs for them to prevent them from tramping down into
the water and fouling in the water and leaving it contaminated.
Well we're standing here in a shelter belt on the farm, what we're doing here is we're using the
shelter belt for a number of different functions, so obviously one of the things
is to keep the animals away from the water this is it's a it's a wet enough
farm it's on a north-facing slope so a lot of water has to get off the farm.
We have a high rainfall in this area so we have to be very careful with the land
management we don't want to see the land poached, so it's very important that we take the cattle
off the land in the winter time and put them in sheds so that land is not poached irreparably.
In the summertime the ground should be
firm enough but occasionally with recent weather trends we have been getting
very damp spells even in the middle of the summertime.
The summer of 2012 for example, was very wet and cattle had to be housed on numerous occasions
just to try and prevent the ground from being badly damaged, from being badly poached.
If a grounds left brown over the winter there's much more danger of silt being washed into the watercourse.
Fields are all kept green all the year here so there's not a problem with silt being washed into the watercourse.
With cattle we tend to keep them fairly close to the gate as long as
the watercourse is no where near that particular area that is fine.
The area around the gate may be tramped a bit, but that's not as bad as trampling the whole field.
With sheep we move about the troughs because the damage is not so severe with their feet.
If a field is really badly tramped with cattle, in other words too high a density of stock in the field,
the field can get so badly tramped that it's actually a mass just of moving soil
and if it comes a big downpour of rain that soil will end up in the river.
The ground in this area was drained many years ago and some of these drains now
are being chomped down with the heavy machinery compaction and higher stocking
density so if ta wet area appears in a field we have to go in with a digger
and repair that, that prevents areas become waterlogged and allows the water to get away.
If there's a dump area in a field and there's no natural outlet
we tend to fence that off because those wet areas are very prone to
support snails which are involved in liver fluke life cycle and that leads to problems
with sheep and cattle having liver fluke in their livers.
Their livers are condemned and their performance is impaired so we want to try and make sure
any of those damp areas are fenced off if it's not possible to get the water away.