Anything you want us to make a course on let us know. We aren’t afraid to admit we don’t know everything. But if there’s something you want to see that we haven’t done a course on let us know! Even if we don’t know it we will do our best to get stuck in with it and share our progress along the way!

Would people be interested in live events such as one during lambing time showing what goes on and hopefully 🤞🏻 get the chance to see a lamb being born! Open to any suggestions for other events

To start with, a foraging is part of the process of making silage (a fermented feed that can be fed to livestock, often cattle) Starting from the beginning, there are multiple crops that can be used to make silage. In the UK mostly grass and Maize (corn on the cobs) and sometimes whole crop (whole cereal crops such as barley) They are produced by first chopping the crop. For grass this is done separately with a mower, then raked up into larger rows. For maize and whole crop this is done directly with the forage harvester. Then, once the grass is either rowed up of the crop is ready to harvest. A machine called a forage harvester or sometimes a chopper is used. This machine, which looks similar to a tractor. Has a header on the front ( an attachment which picks up grass from the ground and feeds it into the chopper, or in the case of maize and whole crop, it forst cuts the plant then feeds it. The forager chops the plant up into small pieces, the size of which can be adjusted to oreference of the farmer but often into pieces only a couple of centimetres long. This chopped up product is then accelerated up and out of a spout at the top of the machine and into a trailer. The trailer will then go back to the farm and tip this into a silage pit or clamp ( both the same thing, imagine a 3 sided room with no roof. The product is then pushed around the pit with a tractor, or loader to make a nice even layer and as it builds up often created a ramp so machines can keep driving up it. The person in charge of the pit, sometimes more than one, will continuously roll the pit to get as much air out of the silage. This allows it to ferment rather than going mouldy. Once all the grass maize or whole crop is in the pit, or the pit is full. A plastic sheet is put over the top and held down often with old tyres. This keeps all the air and weather out. the pit will then be left to ferment creating a nutritious sugar rich feed. Now, why? The main reasons for doing this come down to winter feed. So that livestock can be fed over winter when it’s too wet and cold for them to be outside. The idea is that enoigh feed between the silage thats been made and other feeds such as hay and dry feeds. To last through the wetter months Untill livestock can be turned out into the fields again.